Fig, honey and rosemary – my new holy trinity of cake flavours. This is an upside-down cake, but not as you know it. We’re now coming into the second, or “new-wood” fig season, which means lots of new recipe experimenting with my favourite forbidden fruit! Figs and honey are an ancient pairing made in heaven, I don’t even need to explain why it works so well, it just does – like Thelma & Louise, Wallace & Gromit, Kermit & Miss Piggy.
Rosemary adds an extra fragrant, aromatic layer to this cake whilst using olive oil instead of butter keeps this cake incredibly moist and gives it a slightly earthy bitterness that helps to cut though the sweet.
This feels like more of a dessert than a cake, especially when served slightly warm with a generous blob of creme fraiche or mascarpone.
Fig, Honey & Rosemary Upside-Down Cake
Course: Cakes, DessertDifficulty: Easy12
servings15
minutes67
hours10
minutesFig, honey and rosemary – my new holy trinity of cake flavours. This is an upside-down cake, but not as you know it.
Ingredients
- Cake
225 g honey
8-12 figs, sliced in half
120 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 lemon, zest of
120 ml olive oil
100 g caster Sugar
2 eggs
- Syrup
6 sprigs rosemary
100 g lemon juice
100 g caster sugar
60 g water
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
- Grease and line a 9” baking dish with greaseproof and butter.
- Pour half of the honey onto the greaseproof paper and the arrange your fig slices on top. I like seeing the beautiful insides of the figs so I place the insides face down onto the paper.
- Cream together the oil, sugar and honey until pale.
- Add the eggs one at a time to the creamed mixture.
- Add the flour, baking powder and salt in stages. Folding together carefully.
- Finally add the lemon zest and give one final fold.
- Spoon the cake batter evenly onto of the figs, spreading as little as you can so your fig pattern remains neat.
- Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a wooden skewer comes out clean when poked in the middle.
- While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Tip all the ingredients into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer gently for another five minutes, then turn off the heat and leave the rosemary to infuse.
- While the cake and syrup are still warm, make holes all over the top of the cake with a skewer, and pour over the syrup.
- Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or mascarpone and a drizzle more of honey for extra indulgence.
