Celebrate fresh fig season with this delicious moist and rustic fig cake! Perfectly jammy and ripe figs caramelize as they bake into the almond batter that’s super quick and easy to make!
Fresh fig season has officially arrived! Head to your local farmers market to experience these colorful beauties in all their varieties!
Motto all fig season long: LET'S GET FIGGY WITH IT!
Why this Recipe Works
- Fresh fig! That’s perfectly ripe and jammy figs that caramelize in the oven!
- Quick & easy! The batter easily comes together in a food processor or a stand mixer, saving time and making for minimal clean up.
- That lemon zest! Resulting in a more fragrant cake.
- Easily adaptable to any time of year! No figs?! No problem! Simply swap the fig topping for another seasonal fruit of your choice! (see ideas below)
- Enjoy any time of day! This cake works just as well for breakfast as it does for a mid-day snack or a post dinner treat.
This moist fresh fig cake is dense and chewy with hints of lemon, honey, and vanilla.
How to Make this Recipe
Pulse dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, add the wet ingredients, and pulse again, spread batter on skillet, top with cut side up figs (or another seasonal fruit), sprinkle figs with sugar and let the oven do the rest of the work.
place figs on the batter and bake! pre-oven shot.
Picking & Storing Fresh Figs
With figs, ripeness is EVERYTHING!
Picking Figs
You want them to be soft, give a little with the slightest pressure, not be either mushy or hard, just beginning to crack and nearly wrinkled. When you cut into the flesh of a ripe fig it’s bright, juicy and practically jammy.
Avoid figs with bruises and check to see that the stems are firmly in place — a wiggly, loose stem is a dead giveaway for a mushy fig. No mushy figs welcome around here!
Storing Figs
Figs are one of the most perishable fruits around! Buy them with the intention to use ‘em up within a few days. Once they’re fully ripe, use them immediately or store them in a plastic bag in the coldest part of your fridge for up to 2 days.
Other Topping Options
No figs?! No problem! Top with other fresh fruit in season!
Options include (but are not limited to) plums, strawberries, pears and more.
The fresh fruit sky is the limit! Or even use dried fruit! The fruit topping is flexi, just like the fresh fruit toppings in this cheesecake.
Go with the fresh fruit topping that YOU like best and is season where YOU are! Have fun and get wildly creative in the kitchen!
Cooks Tips
- When possible, buy sustainably grown fruit from your local farmers market.
- Go for ripe figs! You want them to be soft, give a little with the slightest pressure, and not be either mushy or hard.
- If fresh figs are not in season, they can easily be swapped for another fresh fruit!
- This cake will hold well, wrapped or covered, for up to 3 days.
Stoked on Fig Season?! Check out:
- Roasted Figs with Burrata
- Honey Baked Bri with Fresh Figs
- Fresh Fig Salad with Prosciutto
- Upside-Down Dried Fig Cake
Have ya tried this recipe? I’d love to hear about it and see it too! Please leave a comment below and take a pic and tag it on Instagram with #DanielaGerson. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to see more colorfully delicious food and all sorts of awesome adventures!
Let’s make waves in the kitchen!
Posted in 2018, last Updated 2020.
Fig Cake
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup almond flour store bought or home-made; if you dont have this sub with all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 eggs lightly beaten
- 4 tablespoons butter melted, + a bit more for greasing skillet/pan
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 zest & juice lemon
- 12-14 ripe figs
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375 F degress.
- In the bowl of a food processor with the paddle attachment or a stand mixer, pulse the all-purpose flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt until just combined.
- Add the eggs, 1 at a time, melted butter, honey, almond and vanilla extract, lemon juice and zest, to the almond flour mixutre and pulser until batter is just mixed.
- Butter a cast iron skillet (or am 9-inch cake pan) and pour batter in, smooth top with a spatula.
- 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 a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Notes
- When possible, buy sustainably grown fruit from your local farmers market.
- Go for ripe figs! You want them to be soft, give a little with the slightest pressure, and not be either mushy or hard.
- If fresh figs are not in season, they can easily be swapped for another fresh fruit!
- This cake will hold well, wrapped or covered, for up to 3 days.
This is beautiful (and I wish I'd someday have a lot of figs to deal with)! But a question, isn't almond flour just ground almonds? In that case are you just grinding almond because they aren't blanched? Thanks!
Yes! And the consistency is quite different when I grind up almonds myself vs buy almond flour. But you can go all ground up almonds or all almond flour here.... I enjoy mixing both. And you can make the cake with another type of fruit topping too until you get some fig bounty :).
Thanks Daniela!
How big is either your cast iron pan or cake pan? 8"? Thanks.
So stoked to hear you're making this Alene and so sorry for not clarifying! 8" or 9" will both work :)!
Can I use normal flour ?
Yes you absolutely can Romy! Please let me know how it comes out :).
Hi Daniela! If I'm using a normal round cake pan, should I adjust the temp or time at all? Or can I leave it the same as if it were baking in a cast iron? Thank you!
Hi Mitch! No need to adjust the temp at all! I'll update the recipe with this info. So stoked to hear you're making this + please lemme know how it comes to :)!
Have you ever added almond paste instead of using the extract? Wondering if it may make it delightfully decadent. I would have to figure out how much to put in without messing up texture or it being overkill….
Hi Bridget - haven't tried using almost paste instead of extract but think that would absolutely work as well! Not sure what the subbing ratio is but I'd add a little paste at a time and taste the batter until the flavor was to your liking. Please let me know how it goes :).