Our Local Harvest Cupcake Series features a brand new cupcake in September: Fig & Honey. The star of this cupcake is housemade fig compote, which we use as both a filling and garnish, so we wanted to find the freshest, ripest, most luscious local figs around. And we found them on Bainbridge Island! So Team Cupcake boarded the ferry to Bainbridge to meet up with Renee and Stephen Dole at their picture-perfect homestead to pick figs. They have a small orchard and a garden (and chickens!) that produces enough fruit and vegetables to feed their beautiful little family and some of the island’s restaurants as well.

Renee taught us all about the Desert King fig tree, showed us how to identify and the very ripest figs, and the technique for harvesting them. Then she picked each of us a huge green fig to try. They were outstanding! None of us had never tasted figs so sweet and juicy! Figs at peak ripeness are so soft and full that it takes special care to harvest them without them bursting in your hands, and with the aid of ladders we disappeared high into the tree to find the best figs. Before we knew it we had harvested over 50 lbs of perfect figs.

Now you will have a chance to try these local figs. Our bakers have transformed these figs into the fresh fig compote that will fill each Fig & Honey cupcake as well as garnish the top. We are very proud of this flavor so thankful to the Dole family for so graciously sharing their figs with us. We think you will love these cupcakes and hope you take the chance to try them while they’re around! They will be in cafes and available online for pickup or delivery only for the month of September.