Fig and Port Cranberry Sauce
If you’ve been looking for a cranberry sauce recipe to make this year for Thanksgiving, look no further. This Fig and Port Cranberry Sauce is the perfect combination of tart and sweet with a hint of warmth from the port, rosemary, and balsamic vinegar.
Thanksgiving prep is in full swing around the house these days. Our new dining room table is getting delivered tomorrow, we placed the order for our turkeys, and we finally got the guest room all cleaned up and ready to go. As for the menu planning, I think I’ve finalized the meal portion of the day, but the desserts are all still up in the air.
I’m planning to make some recipes that I know and love, like this <a href="http://www.beantownbaker.com/2008/11/depths-of-fall-butternut-squash-pie.html"Depths of Fall Pie and these Pecan Pie Cookies. Hubby’s mom is making her famous Chocolate Mousse and her boyfriend is making his famous pumpkin pie. I’ll probably throw in a new recipe to round out the dessert table, but I haven’t had time to play around in the kitchen to figure out what just yet.
There were a few cranberry recipes I wanted to test out. I love this Classic Cranberry Sauce recipe and I plan to make it, but I also wanted to make something with a bit more pizzazz. A dressed up cranberry sauce. This was the first candidate on my list of recipes and I stopped testing recipes after one bite of this cranberry sauce. It’s sweet and tart with chunks of fig and cranberry dancing around together. The rosemary and port provide a subtle warmth that round out the sauce nicely. I left mine fairly chunky, but you could also puree it for a smoother consistency.
One Year Ago: Easy Chicken and Sausage Cassoulet
Two Years Ago: Berry Cream Cheese and Shrimp Fritters with Blackberry Dipping Sauce
Three Years Ago: Cranberry White Chocolate Cupcakes
Four Years Ago: Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins and Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Bars
Five Years Ago: Pumpkin Pie Dip
Six Years Ago: Goat Cheese, Pesto, Sundried Tomato sandwich and Goat Cheese Stuffed Salmon
Fig and Port Cranberry Sauce
This Fig and Port Cranberry Sauce is the perfect combination of tart and sweet with a hint of warmth from the port, rosemary, and balsamic vinegar.
Yield: ~3 1/2 cups
Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups ruby Port
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 dried black Mission figs, stemmed, chopped
1 6-inch-long sprig fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries
3/4 cup sugar
Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients except the cranberries and white sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring until brown sugar dissolves.
Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the rosemary stems. Stir in cranberries and sugar.
Cook on medium until cranberries burst, stirring occasionally. Once liquid has reduced slightly, remove from heat and cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve (may be made up to a week in advance).
Recipe from Bon Appetit
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I am really very terrible at frosting/decorating cake :\ This came out way better than anything I could make!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
Ha – I’m pretty bad too. That’s why I love putting stuff on the sides. Coconut does a good job of hiding my sloppy decorating skills.
Coconut and almond, you’ve already got me reeled in 🙂 two of my favorite flavors rolled into what looks like a moist, fluffy cake. YUM
This cake looks so beautiful and the texture is perfect! I love curd as a filling between cake layers but i never knew the trick for preventing it from seeping out – thanks!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:19 pm
Yea, it’s definitely very helpful. Even more so when you ACTUALLY do it 😉
We’ve all had those cake experiences. It looks like it turned out well in the end! And it sounds delicious!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
Glad to hear I’m not the only one. I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking we all need to project that all of our baking/cooking endeavors are hugely successful…
Regardless of any kitchen mishaps, this cake looks divine! Layer cakes always look so special, and the addition of fruit here makes me swooooon!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
I agree. Layer cakes always look special 🙂
Oh this looks amazing. And aren’t we all our own worst critics when we bake? I can’t tell you how many times I say something is terrible and my husband looks as me like I’m crazy.
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:21 pm
I agree. At the end of the day, it tasted delicious and no one knew about all the issues I had with the cake. I did want to keep it real on the blog and not give anyone any false sense that things are always easy for me…
I always shy away from layer cakes – yours always come out well, I need some more practice I think! Your “mistakes” are great learning points – did not know about the frosting damn, but it makes so much sense!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:23 pm
That’s why I wanted to talk about them. I definitely could have posted about this cake without mentioning any of the issues I had. I’m hoping they’ll help someone (myself included) to learn something for the next time they tackle a layer cake. Yours will definitely improve with practice. Mine surely are. I really want to make that coconut cake you just posted!
i’m always hard on myself too, but you wouldn’t know by the taste i’m sure! looks absolutely wonderful, not to mention i’m drooling over the flavor combo 🙂
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:24 pm
I agree, I think we all are. I wanted to keep it real with this post in case anyone else found it to be a difficult set of recipes…
Yum, your cake looks so delicious and I really love the sound of the blackberry lime curd!
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:27 pm
Thanks!
I love coconut cake, and blackberries are my favorite fruit. Such a great idea to put them together. This cake is gorgeous! I would happily take a large slice . . . or maybe the whole thing 😉
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2013 @ 10:02 am
Then you would definitely love this cake!
Could anyone post the blackberry lime curd recipe? The link is no longer working.
Thanks!
beantownbaker — August 12th, 2013 @ 7:39 pm
Sorry about that. I updated the recipe link, but here it is as well: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2013/03/blackberry-lime-curd.html