Pick of the season from your own garden

Abundance of figs in my backyard. With this weather figs are ideal for making cake and sure are budget creation. Why not try something different this Easter. Make your family and friends feel loved. My dessert always follows the golden rule of keeping things simple and on budget. Bring a plate of Joy and Wow your family and friends, there will always be room for dessert. Your family and friends will never miss or say no to dessert.

Google: “Green figs vary in size and appearance, depending on the specific variety. The plump, bulbous fruits are a type of syconia, meaning they are fleshy vessels encasing tiny, inverted flowers that each have a single seed. Green figs have a curved, slightly flattened base that tapers to a slender, short to long neck. The skin can be thin or thick and typically has a smooth, velvety, and delicate nature, ripping, bruising, or damaging easily. Green figs can be eaten raw or cooked and have a mild, sweet, earthy, and honeyed taste with nuances of raspberries, citrus, butterscotch, nectar, berry, and nuts, depending on the variety.”

“Green figs are a source of fiber to regulate the digestive tract, copper to develop connective tissues, and vitamin C to boost the immune system. Figs also provide potassium to balance fluid levels within the body, vitamin A to maintain healthy organ functioning, calcium to build strong bones and teeth, and other nutrients, including vitamin K, magnesium, iron, and manganese.”

I am glad to be able to use my figs in so many different ways. Today, I am making fig cake and am glad to be able to share it with my friends at our weekend away from home. All my friends enjoy it and asks if they can have some to take home for their husbands and sons. My cake is heavy, moist, sweet, citrus, crunchy and delicious. Let’s bake!!!!

Ingredients

8 figs, cut half lengthways
6-8 figs, cut into bite sizes, puree
3 Tbs castor sugar, divide
4 Tbs marsala wine
250 g double cream
250 g butter
200 g soft dark brown sugar
250-300 g self raising flour
4 eggs
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 Tsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
1/4 c water, for puree figs

Method

Preheat oven 160 degrees C fan forced. Grease and line 23 cm round lifted based pan. Put figs half lengthways into bowl with 2 Tbs castor sugar and marsala wine. Then toss well and set aside for 15 minutes.

Puree the other 6-8 figs bite sizes with water using Nutri Bullet until pureed, and set aside. Place softened butter into mixing bowl with dark brown sugar, beating until light and fluffy about 5-7 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Now add in double cream, vanilla, 250 g flour, baking powder and salt; beating until smooth batter. Next add in the pureed figs, stir to mix well.  Check batter consistency, if too watery, add another 50 g self raising flour. I added in extra flour as batter were a bit watery. Mix well till batter is right consistency: smooth batter.

Scatter the bottom of the prepared pan with the remaining 1 Tbs castor sugar. Then arrange the figs that had been soaked in marsala wine and sugar; cut side down. Spoon batter on top of the figs. Gives a couples of gentle knocks on the bench top to relieve air bubbles. Bake for 1 hour until golden brown all over, and risen. Test with skewer, if skewer out clean, cake is cooked. If skewer out a bit wet with batter on it put cake to bake a further 10-15 minutes.

Switch off oven, leaven pan in the oven with door close for about 30 minutes. Then removed to rack to cool for about 15 minutes. Then flip cake out and over to cake plate mat or a plate and leave to cool further before cutting it.

Note: Oven temperature may vary. So too the size of the figs and with some figs pureed added in, you might need more baking time. You can just use cut half lengthways only. Then self raising flour would be about 250 g. You can just use 200 g butter. I prefer my cake to be heavier and moister I have added 50 g extra butter.

You might want to add 1 Tsp ground cinnamon for more flavour. You may omit double cream use full cream milk instead. You might want to use light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar. You might want to use fruit juice such as orange juice instead of marsala wine.

https://helenscchin.com/2024/03/08/fig-cake

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