Fig and Almond Cake

By David Tanis

Fig and Almond Cake
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Total Time
1 hour
Rating
5(1,790)
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

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.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,790 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!

Bgl Mom

We loved it, I made the recipe as written, but I could see using marzipan in place of the ground almonds. It has a light, grainy texture like a semolina cake. It is not too sweet, which makes for great snacking any time of day! The figs are key here - when ripe enough they carmelize slightly during baking and are just delicious.

CJ

Made this tart yesterday. I didn't love it. The texture is very bready and kind of reminded me of zucchini bread in a way. Won't be making it again.

Susan F

I needed more than ten additional minutes baking time. Perhaps my green figs were more liquidy than brown figs are. Final product was delicious!

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