Fig and Walnut Cake — an olive-oil cake studded with soaked figs and toasted walnuts

i. Origin & history

This is not one fixed national recipe but a family of cakes built on a very old partnership. Figs and walnuts both ripen in late summer and early autumn across the Mediterranean and Anatolia, both dry and store well through winter, and both have been eaten together for as long as people have been laying fruit out on roofs to dry. A handful of dried figs split open and stuffed with a walnut half is still a common winter sweet from southern Italy to Turkey.

Baked versions of the pairing appear under many names. In Italy a torta di fichi e noci is a rustic home cake, often made with olive oil in the south; in Greece, the island of Corfu has a pressed fig cake, sykomaïda, and household fig cakes go by sykópita; Spain has the dense, pressed pan de higo, a slab of ground figs and nuts eaten with cheese; and in Turkey the modern tea-time incirli cevizli kek is a staple of home baking around Aydın and İzmir, the heart of the country's fig-growing region.

The cake on this page is the contemporary oven-baked form of that tradition: a tender olive-oil batter, closer to an Italian home cake than to the pressed fig breads, carrying a generous amount of soaked dried fig and toasted walnut. It is a cake of the store cupboard rather than the festival table — made in autumn and winter when dried figs are new-season and walnuts are fresh, and eaten with coffee, tea or a glass of sweet wine.

If you want the fresh-fig end of the spectrum, the fig and honey tart uses ripe figs whole; for something warmer and darker, the spiced fig cake leans on ginger and clove. This cake sits between them: fruity, nutty and only lightly spiced.

ii. Why the figs are soaked and the walnuts toasted

Dried figs are around a fifth water, and in a cake batter they behave like sponges: dropped in dry, they pull moisture out of the crumb around them during baking, leaving tough, leathery pieces of fruit inside a dry cake. Soaking them for 15–20 minutes in hot orange juice or tea plumps the fruit first, so it stays soft and jammy and gives moisture back rather than taking it.

Chopping matters too. Fig pieces about the size of a hazelnut distribute evenly; whole or halved figs are heavy enough to sink to the base of the tin. Tossing the drained pieces in a spoonful of the measured flour gives them a dry, rough coat that grips the batter and helps keep them suspended.

Walnuts, by contrast, need drying out. Raw walnuts are soft and slightly bitter from the tannins in their papery skins; eight minutes in a hot oven drives off moisture, crisps them, and develops the toasty, almost buttery flavour that stands up to the sweet fig. Rubbing the warm nuts in a cloth knocks off some of the loosest skin and takes the edge off the bitterness.

The olive oil is the third piece. An oil-based batter stays moister for longer than a butter cake because oil remains liquid at room temperature, which is why this cake is often better on day two than on day one. A mild, fruity extra-virgin oil adds a faint green, peppery note that suits figs; a very peppery oil can be too assertive, so taste it first.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 10 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 200 g dried figs, stems removed, chopped
• 120 ml orange juice or strong black tea, hot
• 120 g walnut halves
• 250 g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp fine salt
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 150 g caster sugar
• 60 g light muscovado sugar
• 160 ml mild extra-virgin olive oil
• 120 ml whole milk or plain yoghurt
• 1 orange, finely grated zest
• 1 tbsp honey, warmed, to glaze

Choose soft dried figs — Turkish Smyrna or Calimyrna types are plump and honeyed; very hard, dark figs need a longer soak. Walnuts should taste sweet, not rancid; their oils oxidise quickly, so buy recent stock and keep them in the fridge. Light muscovado adds a molasses depth that echoes the fig; all caster sugar gives a paler, cleaner cake. Swapping the milk for yoghurt gives a slightly tangier, more tender crumb. Pecans or hazelnuts work in place of walnuts, and 300 g fresh figs, quartered and pressed into the top of the batter, can replace the dried ones in late summer — the cake will be wetter and keeps only two days.

iv. Method

1. Pour the hot orange juice or tea over the chopped figs and leave to soak for 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 170 °C (340 °F), or 150 °C fan, and line a 23 cm springform tin with baking paper.
2. Spread the walnuts on a tray and toast for 7–8 minutes until fragrant and a shade darker. Rub in a clean tea towel to loosen the skins, then chop roughly, keeping a few halves for the top.
3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Drain the figs (keep the liquid) and toss them and the chopped walnuts in 1 tbsp of the flour mixture.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with both sugars for 2–3 minutes until pale and slightly thickened. Whisk in the olive oil in a thin stream, then the milk or yoghurt, the orange zest and 2 tbsp of the reserved soaking liquid.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients until just combined, then fold in the floured figs and walnuts. The batter should be thick but still drop off the spatula.
6. Scrape into the tin, level, and scatter the reserved walnut halves over the top. Bake for 50–60 minutes, until deep golden, risen and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out with no wet batter (a smear of fig is fine). Cover loosely with foil after 35 minutes if the top is browning fast.
7. Brush the hot cake with warmed honey, cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then release and cool completely on a rack before slicing.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Never skip the soak. Unsoaked dried figs bake into chewy, leathery nuggets and steal moisture from the crumb. Twenty minutes in hot liquid is enough.
• Snip off the hard stems. The little woody stalk at the top of each dried fig stays tough no matter how long it bakes. Kitchen scissors are quicker than a knife for both trimming and chopping.
• Taste a walnut before you start. Rancid walnuts taste of paint and will ruin the cake. If they are bitter or stale, use pecans instead.
• Do not overmix once the flour goes in. Oil cakes toughen quickly if beaten after the flour is added; fold until the last streaks of flour just disappear.
• Test for doneness in the crumb, not the fruit. A skewer that hits a fig comes out sticky even when the cake is baked. Test in two places, and look for a top that springs back.
• Let it rest overnight if you can. Olive-oil cakes settle and grow moister as they stand; the orange and cinnamon also become more pronounced the next day.

vi. Variations

Loaf version: halve the recipe and bake in a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin for about 50 minutes for a sliceable tea bread. Turkish style (incirli cevizli kek) usually uses sunflower oil and yoghurt rather than olive oil, and is baked in a ring tin. Italian style adds a splash of Marsala or vin santo to the soaking liquid and sometimes a little ground fennel seed — the same aniseed note found in fennel seed biscotti. A wholemeal version replaces a third of the flour with wholemeal spelt, giving a nuttier, denser cake.

Related fruit-and-nut bakes on DessertCat include the date-based spiced date cake, the syrup-soaked Greek melomakarona with their walnut-honey topping, and the British figgy pudding, a steamed fig dessert of an entirely different tradition.

vii. Serving & storage

Serve slices at room temperature with coffee or tea, or as a dessert with thick Greek yoghurt or mascarpone and a drizzle of honey. In the Italian manner it is excellent with a sliver of aged pecorino or a soft blue cheese and a glass of sweet wine, and it makes a good, sturdy cake for packed lunches and picnics.

Wrapped well, it keeps for 5 days at room temperature and improves for the first two. It freezes very well for up to 3 months, whole or in slices wrapped individually; thaw at room temperature for a couple of hours. A slice that has dried out can be toasted lightly and buttered.

ix. More from Turkish & Mediterranean

• Spiced Fig Cake — warm-spiced fig bake
• Fig and Honey Tart — fresh figs on almond cream
• Honey Almond Cake — nutty honey sponge
• Revani — syrup-soaked semolina cake
• Melomakarona — Greek honey-walnut cookies
• Fig Newtons — American fig-filled biscuits