Serves: 6-8 - Time:
Inspired by a peach cake recipe I found in an old cookbook, I played around a bit and came up with this. It is a moist cake and best served warm as a pudding with lashings of custard. I bore myself saying this so often but ripeness in fruit is key to flavour so try and choose the figs carefully.
Ingredients
- 4 ripe figs
- 180g soft light brown sugar
- 80g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature (plus extra for buttering the tin)
- 1 large egg
- 100ml double cream
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 150g plain flour
- 50g ground almonds
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 20g flaked almonds
Method
- Butter and line a 22cm spring form cake tin with a disc of non-stick baking parchment. Heat the oven to 180˚c, fan oven 160˚c, mark 4. Cut the figs into 1cm pieces and place in a bowl. Toss with 1 tablespoon of the sugar.
- Place the remaining sugar in a mixing bowl and add the butter. Beat until fluffy. Beat in the egg and almond extract then pour in the cream and beat briefly to combine.
- Mix the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together. Stir into the cake batter. Spoon into the prepared tin and level out.
- Scatter the chopped figs on to the batter, pressing down the fruit slightly. Sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 170˚c, fan oven 150˚c, mark 3 and continue to bake for 35-40 minutes until golden and slighty firm in the centre. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before lifting out of the tin.
