Sunday, August 23, 2009

Nutty Fig Cake

I love the late summer, when the fig trees are loaded with their sweet fruit, tempting me with a delicious ready to pick snack outside my window. And I could swear that there are much more of them this year than last. At least I have been eating them for breakfast, lunch (with gorgonzola on a sandwich) and dinner (caramelized over panna cotta or ice cream for desert) and the tree is still presenting me with more. Two solutions: many jars of fig jam for cold and dark winters (homemade jam and preserves also always make a very thoughtful and lovely hostess gift!) and ....

...a nutty fig cake!

And it is easy as 1-2-3

250 g flour
50 g ground pecan nuts or almonds
100 g sugar
200 g butter
1 egg
3 lb. ripe figs

Quickly mix all the ingredients in a porcelain bowl until the dough stops sticking to the sides. The less you actually work the dough, the better. Put to rest in the fridge for 15 min. In the meantime decide how high you want the crust to be: I use the above quantities for two cakes of 10 inches (25 cm) each in diameter, but I am a thin crust kind of girl (you can easily freeze the second batch for later use).

Spread the dough in the cake pan, cut the figs in half (make sure there are no bugs inside) and place them tightly on the dough. If your figs are not super ripe and sugary, you want to briefly caramelize them in a pan beforehand, in order to reduce their water content.

Bake at 375°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, about 5 - 10 minutes more if you choose a thick crust.

Buon Appetito!

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