Preheat the oven to 200 °C, or keep it at that temperature if you've just cooked the main course in it.
Recipes Dessert · Aphrodisiac recipe
Roasted figs with honey and thyme.
Figs opened into quarters, a drizzle of honey, a few thyme leaves and ten minutes in the oven: a warm, fragrant dessert, served with very cold yogurt.
Roasted figs with honey and thyme in a stoneware dish, served with cold yogurt for a candlelit dinner. AI-generated illustrations.
See in Photo Comic artThe simplest dessert on the menu, and maybe the most sensual. Six figs, a drizzle of honey, a little thyme: ten minutes in the oven is all it takes for the fruit to soften and the honey to caramelize. Serve them warm with a spoonful of very cold yogurt, and the contrast of hot and cold does the rest.
The fig holds a special place in the romantic imagination. A symbol of fertility around the Mediterranean since Antiquity, it owes its reputation to its shape and its flesh: opened into quarters, it needs no commentary. Honey, for its part, has always lent its sweetness to sweet nothings. Neither one actually acts on desire, but the dish is eaten slowly, with a spoon or with your fingertips.
It's also a light dessert that ends the meal without weighing you down. Make the most of it during fig season, from late summer into fall: out of season, pears take over.
Opened into quarters, it needs no commentary.
Method.
6 steps · 15 minutesGently rinse the figs and pat them dry. Trim the tip of the stem if it's hard, without cutting into the fruit.
Cut a cross into each fig, halfway down, then gently squeeze the base between two fingers: the four quarters open out like a flower.
Arrange the figs snugly in a small ovenproof dish. Drizzle with honey, letting it run into the heart of the fruit, strip the thyme leaves over the top, add a grind of pepper and scatter with sliced almonds.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. The figs are ready when they're tender, their juice starts to bead and the honey caramelizes lightly around the edges of the dish.
Serve warm, three figs each, with a spoonful of very cold Greek yogurt and a little of the cooking juices spooned from the dish.
Tips.
The Points G editors
Recipes proofread before publication. The virtues credited to foods owe more to tradition than to science: the pleasure of cooking for two is real enough. AI-generated illustrations.
The whole menu
Aphrodisiac dinner for two.
A crunchy salad, fish baked en papillote, honey-roasted figs and one glass, not the bottle: the dinner for two that delights without weighing you down, with its recipes and a timeline so you're not rushing.
Read the menu
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