For those of us lucky enough to live here in southern Spain, and who are even more lucky enough to have fig trees, this is a recipe for you. It’s for that period in the summer when your Breva figs are ripening at the rate of a kilo or more a day and you are looking for a way to keep some of them for the winter. The recipe is super simple and doesn’t add any extra sugar as the figs are sweet enough.

The fígs are great just with ice cream or cream, figgy pudding or the filling in fig rolls which will be the next post.

You will need 120 grams of butter per kilo of figs, a deep frying pan big enough to take the amount of figs that you are going to preserve and some clean sterilised jars.

A reminder only to preserve fruit that is in perfect condition, as figs are ripening at the hottest time of the year and can quickly start to ferment on the branch, I pick first thing in the morning and only the just ripe nicest figs.

Wash the figs and dry them in a tea towel.

Cut off the stems and cut the figs into quarters.

Warm the butter in a non-stick frying pan and add the figs.

Cook stirring on a medium heat. The fruit will start to give out some of its juices, continue cooking until these have evaporated.

Keep stirring and cooking until the fruit mixture is dryer and is frying in the butter.

The sugar in the fruit will now start to get hotter and be heading towards caramelising. Keep cooking until you can detect the caramel aroma. The fig mixture will get dryer, thicker and tend to stick to the bottom of the pan a bit, but keep going until they are nice and toffee flavoured.

Do not be tempted to taste the figs at this point, they are very hot.

If you are not sure that you have cooked the figs enough, always cook a bit longer until you can really get the odour of the caramel.

Let the figs cool a little before putting them into jars.

I like to put some of the preserve into regular jam sized (270ml) jars, and then some much smaller jars for 1-2 people servings.