If you’ve been here a while, you already know about my eternal love affair with figs. So you can imagine my absolute shock the day a chef casually told me, “Oh — you can cook with the leaves too.” Excuse me… what? Fig leaves?
And then I tasted them. How do you even describe this flavour? It’s fig — but greener. Fresh, floral, and a tiny bit coconut-like. It tastes like summer wrapped in sunlight. Honestly, mind blown.
Living in Cambridge, I bike or walk everywhere, and for weeks this summer, I kept catching the scent of a fig tree on my way home. Every single day, that smell whispered, “Make something with me.” When I started seeing chefs cooking with fig leaves, I finally asked my neighbour if I could pick a few. He said yes… while also giving me a look like I might be mildly unhinged. (Surely I’m not the only one who asks strangers for their foliage… right?)
The idea for this ice cream came from David Lebovitz. He suggests making this earlier in the season, before the leaves spend all summer sun-bathing. I’m late to the party — I made mine in early autumn — and it was still incredible.
Now, confession: I don’t own an ice cream machine (yet!). So I chilled the custard overnight and then froze it while whisking every hour to build in some air. If you do have a churner, absolutely use it — your texture will be creamier.
But whether you churn or whisk, please try this. Fig leaf magic is real. There’s still a bit of fig season left — go gather those leaves while you can…
