Christmas Dessert: Orange Marmalade Cake (+Giveaway)

My husband's younger sisters' winter break finally arrived. I think baking is a great way to spend time together and get over the stress of their school's finals. I didn't really have a specific recipe in mind, but I wanted to make a cake that reflects the holiday season. We started with a simple cake batter and flavored it with orange marmalade I received through our friend Diane from Napa Farmhouse 1885 and store-bought Swedish orange gingersnaps. I crumbled the gingersnaps and added them to the batter and the top of the cake. We baked the cakes in individual Flexipan molds and I let the girls decorate their own version with orange-flavored buttercream and chocolate-covered cherries.

Have fun this holiday season!

Today’s giveaway is 1 fig & Grand Marnier jam, 1 pear & vanilla preserves, 1 orange & ginger marmalade, 1 organic herbs de Provence and 1 organic Italian seasoning from Napa Farmhouse. For a chance to win the prize, just enter today’s giveaway.

Make sure you're a fan of PhamFatale Facebook fan page and Napa Farmhouse 1885, or follow @Phamfatalecom and tweet about this giveaway. To make it easy, you can just copy and paste this tweet if you’d like: "3 jams & two seasonings #Giveaway from @Phamfatalecom and @NapaFarmhouse: http://bit.ly/sp4V7y".

Goat Cheese and Fig Crostini Recipe

We were lucky enough to be able to pick a lot of figs in our garden this year. We had so many, I made several kinds of fig preserves. One of my favorite ways to use fig preserves is to pair it with goat cheese and it just so happened that I received delicious goat cheese from Cypress Grove Chevre today. I spread the two ingredients on crostini for a nice contrast of texture and flavor. I grilled day-old baguette and smeared a layer of goat cheese. The warmth from the bread let the goat cheese ooze and become creamier. The last layer was the fig preserves. I have to admit this easy appetizer is my favorite snack. I love them and could eat a ton!

I have a little story that might sound silly to you but Cypress Grove Chevre goat cheese is very dear to my heart. I remember when I first got married, my husband Lulu surprised me and took me on the 17-mile drive in Carmel, which I had never seen before. I remember he prepared the most romantic picnic on the beach and fed me wonderful Cypress Grove chevre. I had never heard of the company before that picnic but the cute packaging and beautiful scenery has since made it unforgettable to me. The cheese is rich and creamy and absolutely captures what I love about French chevre. It is one of the few American-made cheeses I’ve had that rival its French counterparts.

Cypress Grove Chevre will be a part of our December giveaways, so be sure to check back for your chance to win. Doesn't that sound awesome?

Cheese Chicken Rolls with Fig Chutney

It's already the end of the fig season in our garden. We lucked out this year and gathered so many baskets of delicious figs. One of the best ways to extend the life of quality fruits is to preserve them, so with the last batch, I decided to make fig chutney.

The chutney is very versatile, and I’ve used it in quite a few dishes. Today I paired it with stuffed chicken rolls. I marinated chicken breasts with Bourbon Barrel Kentuckyaki sauce and stuffed them with goat cheese. All you need is to bake the stuffed chicken for about 30 minutes, then cut it into rolls. I served the white meat with fig chutney that I flavored with Kentuckyaki sauce as well. Here's to a flavorful meal!

French Toast Recipe (Pain Perdu)

I had some gata bread that had been going stale on the kitchen counter this weekend. In case you don’t know, gata bread is a soft, chewy, Armenian sweet bread that pairs wonderfully with coffee. Given my aversion to waste, I immediately thought it would make the perfect breakfast if I soaked it in a little egg-sugar-milk mixture. It's called pain perdu, which literally translates to "lost bread” ("French toast" in English).

To accompany the French toast, I made a compote de figues, simply "fig sauce". I placed the bread on a bed of crème anglaise and topped it with freshly whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder.

You’ll like this so much you’ll find yourself purposely letting bread get a little dry. And it’s not just great at breakfast; French toast also makes a tasty after-school snack for children (goûter in French).

Fig Dessert Cup Recipe

I've recently received feedback about PhamFatale, saying that some of the recipes I post seem too complicated and the instructions can sometimes be a bit intimidating. If that describes you, then you are going to love this recipe. It may look fancy and complex, but it’s actually very simple.

The basics of these cute little desserts are roasted figs in individual baked lavash bread cups. I filled the edible cups with store-bought instant pistachio pudding and sprinkled the top of the fruit with crushed pistachios to repeat the flavor from the filling. I prepared the receptacle for each dessert by molding rounds of lavash bread in the cavity of mini-tart pans. I separately roasted fresh figs from our garden that I drizzled with flavorful maple syrup. Doesn't that sound yummy?



It took me no time to complete this elegant-looking sweet treat. So next time you want to serve dessert, give this recipe a try. If you really want to impress your friends, call it "figues rôties à la pistache". French names make everything sound fancy!