Captain Bobcat

Simple Fig and Almond Cake

Simple Fig and Almond Cake – very easy to make and full of autumn goodness of ripe figs. Not too sweet, so perfect for an afternoon treat.

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1 30

Total Time 1 50

Course Dessert

Servings people

Equipment

hand mixer
basic 20cm springform cake tin or similar

Ingredients

5 large figs
125 g plain flour
75 g ground almond
100 g caster sugar
100 g salted butter
100 g Greek yogurt
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
30 g flaked almonds

Instructions

Preheat oven to 170C. You will need a lower temperature than for most baked goods as this cake cooks slowly because of the fruit content.
Cream the butter, the sugar and the eggs first. Sift the flour in, add the almonds, the vanilla and baking powder. Add the yogurt.
Grease the base of a 20cm springform cake tin.
Remove the stalks of the figs. Slice one and half of them into segments. Chop the rest.
Stir the chopped figs into the batter, then scrape into the prepared tin.
Arrange the fig slices nicely on the top and sprinkle with the flaked almonds.
Bake in the oven for 1 hr 30 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean (check it after 1 hr). Let it cool and enjoy.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

This autumn, like last year when I made these fantastically easy and good looking upside down fruit tarts, I was lucky enough to snap up two huge trays of 8 giant figs at Tesco for £2.10. No joking, I have a proof of a photo. I ate a tray on my own but no one else likes figs in my immediate family (weirdos) so I had the other tray to use up fairly quickly, because they were already yellow sticker in the supermarket (US friends, yellow sticker is the mark down food in the shops, when it’s still not sold on the best before date). So I decided it’s fig cake time, obviously, because it was Saturday. This is a thin cake, more like a crustless tart and it is very moist.

How to make this simple fig and almond cake

Firstly, you will need to sort your ingredients, so here are the swaps and tips to do that:

figs – I used really big figs at first and put too much fruit in the first attempt of this cake and it just didn’t work: burnt on the outside, wet in the middle (I also used 180C instead of 170C). It was ok, edible, so ate it but not good. So second time I tried less figs. Only 5 large ones and of those, one and half goes to decorate the top. Too much fruit will result in slow cooking. If this happens to you, turn the temperature down a bit and cover the top with foil
caster sugar – you can use any sugar really, I just had plain white caster at home. 100g of sugar is plenty in my view, not overly sweet
salted butter – can be unsalted, but then add a pinch of salt
Greek yogurt – I prefer this for creaminess

Is fig and almond cake actually healthy?

I would not say it’s particularly healthy, it’s a cake. You can have it in moderation. However, I really tried to use low sugar content in this recipe. Generally, you’d need maybe about 50% more, but I didn’t want a too sweet cake. 100g of sugar is enough for me. Ground almond provides a rich source of protein and healthy monounsaturated fats. Fresh figs adds fiber, potassium, and antioxidants, so even if it’s not healthy per se, it is still a good cake!

Can you make fig and almond cake gluten-free?

I have not tried that, but the good news is, that ground almond is naturally gluten-free. So technically, you can add more of that and reduce the flour content a bit as well as using gluten-free flour, in my view it could work.

Is this fig and almond cake high in calories?

Well, yes, I’d say so. It’s a cake and even with the reduced sugar content it’s still got sugar, plus the ground almond is quite calorie-dense.

Are you supposed to use the whole fig or peel it?

You don’t have to peel the fig. You can safely eat the whole fresh fig, including the skin and tiny seeds, just remove the the tough stem. Same applies in baking, you can absolutely leave the skin on. I’d say it looks much better with it anyway.