Fig and Almond Cake

By David Tanis

Fig and Almond Cake
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Total Time
1 hour
Rating
5(1,501)
Comments
Read comments

Figs are baked into an almond batter for this rustic cake to have with coffee or tea. With figs, ripeness is everything. A ripe fig (the object of your desire) is soft, yielding, beginning to crack, nearly wrinkled. When you cut into it, the flesh is bright and juicy and the taste is ethereal.

Featured in: The Fig Now Yields Its Charms

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Ingredients

Yield:1 9-inch cake
  • 4tablespoons butter, melted, plus butter for greasing pan
  • 1cup natural raw almonds (not blanched)
  • ¼cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling
  • ¼cup all-purpose flour
  • ½teaspoon baking powder
  • ⅛teaspoon cinnamon
  • ⅛teaspoon salt
  • 3eggs, beaten
  • 2tablespoons honey
  • ½teaspoon almond extract
  • 12 to 14ripe figs
Ingredient Substitution Guide
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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan or pie pan; set aside. Put almonds and ¼ cup sugar in a food processor and grind to a coarse powder. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; pulse to combine.

  2. Step 2

    In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, melted butter, honey and almond extract. Add almond mixture and beat for a minute until batter is just mixed. Pour batter into pan.

  3. Step 3

    Remove stem from each fig and cut in half. Arrange fig halves cut-side up over the batter. Sprinkle figs with sugar and bake for 30 minutes, until golden outside and dry at center when probed with a cake tester. Cool before serving.

Ratings

5 out of 5
1,501 user ratings
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Comments

Mark R

Simple to make, and delicious. I substituted 3/4 cup of almond flour for the raw almonds, both to avoid having to grind them and because I had it on hand. The cake was moist and almondy and the figs were, well, perfectly figgy.

Robert

1 cup whole almonds weighs 152g, so when substituting with almond flour instead of whole nuts, use weight not volume.

brutallyfrank

I made it with small Italian plums and it was amazing! I sprinkled the plums with cinnamon and sugar before baking. The plums released a lot of juice but I let it sit in the pan awhile to reabsorb them. Definitely a keeper!

Ellyn

Made with 1 C almond flour in my large tart pan. Prob better timing in smaller tart pan at 30 minutes, as receipe calls for. Not too sweeet--might have preferred a litle bit more sweetness. Also want to try orange peel in the batter next time.

Nadine

I made this cake tonight. My husband loved it. I used figs--from my fig tree--that I canned in simple syrup last year. The only problem was processing the almonds in the food processor. They wouldn't break into bits. I transferred the almonds and sugar to a blender and then poured back into the food processor--so a little clunky. It cooked fast for me. I checked at 23 minutes and it was done. I thought my final product was even prettier than the one pictured with the recipe.

Letterpress

I made this just as the recipe said -- no substitutions or anything. I do wish I'd been checking on it about 25 minutes, for the timing at 30 made for a very dark crust. I loved this because it was really easy and it is very delicious!

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