Figs @ My Family Table

I’m sure this admission will be rather incriminating, but my favourite way to eat a fig is in paste form, resting on a delicate bed of fresh wafer, cradling a modest slice of blue cheese. Add a glass of basket press shiraz into the mix, and I’m a happy girl.

But of course, a cheese cracker is a little too simple to blog about (or is it? Food for thought….), so I’ve made a honeyed fig frangipane cake. With a frangipani flower in the pictures, because any time someone mentions frangipane, I think of frangipani. Simple minds…

Honeyed Fig Frangipane Cake @ My Family Table

I didn’t find these figs at my local grocer. I was a little bit cranky with my local grocer this week actually. Their unstocked shelves let me down. If you were following me on Twitter or Instagram last Friday, you would have seen my frustration at having to drive to a store 30 minutes away to find curry leaves and harissa (don’t worry, they were for another dish). Not a store in a shopping centre that includes the two biggest players in the grocery market, a well-respected local grocer, health food store, butcher and fish market that sell condiments, contained staff that knew what harissa was.

Me: “Do you sell harissa?”
Store Person: “Melissa?”

Nor did any store sell curry leaves, bean shoots, oyster mushrooms, or figs worth eating. So, being a scorpio and a redhead (read: stubbon), I packed the groceries (thank goodness for cold bags) and Lilly into the car and drove into the fresh food market that sold a whole tray of curry leaves, had bags of bean shoots for under a dollar, offered perfectly delicate oyster mushrooms, and stocked shelves full of harissa paste.

Me: “Do you sell harissa?”
Store Person: “Yes, it’s about halfway up this aisle on the top shelf.”
Me: Joy!

Cooking Figs in Honey @ My Family Table

It was there that I spied the figs. There they were, plump and beautiful, beckoning. I made them mine and bought them home. Then I wondered what to do with them. I had planned on making a lemon and lime meringue pie for the Love at First Bite Blog Hop, so my first thought was of a fig tart. Lost for inspiration, I turned to Google and found Ahn’s Fig Tart with Almond Crust. “Hmmm, frangipane...” I thought. “Ugh, pastry…” I thought. What about a cake? I stumbled across a Quince, Rosemary, & Frangipane cake published on JustB, concocted by Hamish Ingham. “I can do that with figs” I thought. And I did.

Yummy Honeyed Fig Frangipane Cake @ My Family Table

Ingredients

  • 6 plump figs, quartered
  • 10g butter + 240g butter softened
  • ½ cup honey
  • 120g caster sugar
  • 120g brown sugar
  • 4 eggs, at room temperature
  • 140g almond meal, sifted to remove lumps
  • 110g self-raising flour, sifted

Method

Grease and line a 23cm spring-form pan, and preheat your oven to 150°C.

In a large frypan, over a medium heat, melt the 10g of butter, then add the honey. Bring to a light simmer, then add the figs cut side down. Cook for about a minute on each cut side, then turn each fig skin side down and cook for a further 8 minutes. Remove the figs from the honey and set aside to cool slightly. Add a tablespoon of water to the honey syrup to thin it slightly, then reserve for serving.

To make the cake, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in each egg, one at a time. Fold in the almond meal and flour until just combined.

Arrange the figs over the base of your spring-form pan, skin side up. Carefully spread the batter over the top, making sure it’s distributed evenly.

Bake at 150°C for 1 hour and 35 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before turning the cake out onto a serving plate (fig side up).

Serve a slice warm with a drizzle of the honey syrup. A nice dollop of mascarpone probably wouldn’t hurt either.

Sweet Adventures Blog Hop - Love at First Bite


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