Spiced Fig Cake — a dark, moist loaf of figs, brown sugar and warm spice

i. Origin & history

Figs came to North America with the Spanish. Franciscan missionaries planted them in their California missions from the late eighteenth century, which is why the dark, sweet Mission fig carries that name, and figs were planted around Spanish and French settlements along the Gulf Coast. Through the nineteenth century the fig tree became a fixture of Southern gardens from the Carolinas to Texas: it thrived in the heat, needed little care, and produced more fruit in a few weeks of late summer than a family could eat fresh.

The answer was preserving. Whole figs simmered in sugar syrup — fig preserves — lined pantry shelves across the South, and from there they went into cake. The Southern fig cake or fig preserve cake, a buttermilk cake spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice and studded with chopped preserved figs and pecans or walnuts, became a church-supper and holiday standard. On Ocracoke Island in North Carolina's Outer Banks, fig cake is something of a local emblem, celebrated each summer with a fig festival and baking contest.

Outside the fig-growing South, most American bakers met figs dried — from California, where Calimyrna and Mission figs were grown commercially from the late nineteenth century — and the spiced fig cake adapted. Dried figs are soaked in boiling water to soften them, in the same way as the dates for a sticky date pudding or the British spiced date cake, then folded into a brown-sugar batter.

Spiced fig cake is distinct from the Mediterranean fig and walnut cake, which is often lighter and made with olive oil or honey, and from the British figgy pudding, a steamed suet pudding. It is closest in spirit to American spice cake and to gingerbread, a dense, keeping cake for autumn and the holidays.

ii. Why the figs are soaked with bicarbonate of soda

Dried figs are leathery, with tough skins and hundreds of tiny seeds. Stirred into a batter as they are, they stay chewy and draw moisture out of the surrounding crumb as the cake bakes and sits, leaving dry patches around each piece. Soaking them first in boiling water rehydrates the fruit so that it melts into the cake instead.

Adding bicarbonate of soda to the soaking water speeds this up. Bicarbonate is alkaline, and an alkaline solution breaks down pectin and the fibrous cell walls of the fig skin, so the fruit softens much more quickly and partly dissolves into a jammy pulp. The alkali also darkens the figs and the batter, giving the cake its deep brown colour, and since the soaking water goes into the cake, the bicarbonate then acts as a leavener, reacting with the acidity of brown sugar and buttermilk to lift the crumb.

The spices work alongside. Figs have a honeyed, faintly woody sweetness that pairs naturally with cinnamon, ginger and clove; clove in particular is potent, and half a teaspoon is enough to give depth without a medicinal edge. Dark muscovado or soft brown sugar adds molasses and moisture, and a little buttermilk balances the sweetness with a gentle tang.

Because the batter is heavy with fruit, it bakes slowly at a moderate temperature in a loaf tin — about an hour at 170 °C. A hotter oven would burn the sugary crust before the dense centre set.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 10 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 250 g soft dried figs, stalks removed, chopped
• 200 ml boiling water
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 125 g unsalted butter, softened
• 175 g dark muscovado or soft dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 250 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp fine salt
• 80 ml buttermilk
• 100 g walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar, for the top

Choose soft, moist dried figs; dark Mission figs give a deeper, jammier flavour, golden Calimyrna or Turkish figs a lighter, honeyed one. Snip off the hard stalk ends, which stay woody. If you have fig preserves or fig jam, replace the soaked figs with 300 g preserves and reduce the sugar to 100 g, as in the Southern fig cake. Buttermilk can be replaced with natural yoghurt thinned with a little milk. Toast the nuts for 8 minutes at 180 °C first; raw walnuts taste bitter and soft in a moist cake.

iv. Method

1. Put the chopped figs in a heatproof bowl, sprinkle over the bicarbonate of soda and pour on the boiling water. Stir, then leave for 20 minutes until the figs are very soft and the liquid has darkened. Mash lightly with a fork, leaving some pieces.
2. Heat the oven to 170 °C (340 °F), or 150 °C fan. Grease a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin and line it with a strip of baking paper overhanging the long sides.
3. Beat the butter and muscovado for 3–4 minutes until lighter and creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
4. Whisk the flour, baking powder, spices and salt together. Fold half into the butter mixture, then the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour, until just combined.
5. Fold in the figs with all their soaking liquid and the nuts. The batter will be soft and loose.
6. Scrape into the tin, level the top and scatter with demerara sugar. Bake for 55–65 minutes, until risen, firm to the touch and a skewer in the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. If the top darkens too quickly, cover loosely with foil after 40 minutes.
7. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then lift out and cool completely on a rack. For the best flavour and neatest slices, wrap and leave overnight before cutting.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Do not skip the soak. Unsoaked dried figs stay chewy and leave dry pockets in the crumb. Twenty minutes in boiling water with soda transforms them.
• Add all the soaking liquid. It carries flavour and the bicarbonate that helps the cake rise; pouring it away gives a flat, dry loaf.
• Remove the stalks. The hard tip of each dried fig never softens and is unpleasant to bite into.
• Measure the cloves. Clove overwhelms other spices quickly; half a teaspoon is plenty for a whole loaf.
• Bake low and slow. The sugary, fruit-heavy batter burns on top before the centre cooks in a hot oven. Protect the top with foil if needed.
• Wait a day. Like most fruit cakes, it is moister, more fragrant and easier to slice the day after baking.

vi. Variations

The Southern fig preserve cake uses fig preserves instead of dried figs, with buttermilk and pecans, and is often baked in a tube or layer tin with a buttermilk glaze or caramel icing. Ocracoke-style fig cake is typically a layer cake made with local fig preserves. A fresh fig version halves the dried figs and presses fresh fig halves into the top before baking. Orange and fig adds the zest of an orange and replaces the buttermilk with orange juice. For a glaze, mix 100 g icing sugar with 2 tbsp orange juice or bourbon and drizzle over the cooled loaf.

For similar cakes on DessertCat, try the British spiced date cake, the Mediterranean fig and walnut cake, a fig and honey tart or Yorkshire parkin, a dark, sticky oat-and-ginger cake that also gets better with keeping.

vii. Serving & storage

Serve spiced fig cake in thick slices with tea or coffee, spread with salted butter or with a slice of sharp cheese — Cheddar or a blue cheese are both very good with fig. As a pudding, warm a slice briefly and serve it with custard, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. It is a natural cake for autumn, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Wrapped tightly in baking paper and foil, or in an airtight tin, it keeps at room temperature for up to 5 days, becoming stickier and more flavourful. It freezes well, whole or in slices, for up to 3 months; thaw at room temperature. Toast stale slices in a dry pan or under the grill and butter them.

ix. More from North American

• Spiced Date Cake — sticky date and spice loaf
• Fig and Walnut Cake — Mediterranean fig cake
• Sticky Date Pudding — toffee-sauced date sponge
• Figgy Pudding — steamed Christmas pudding
• Fig Newtons — fig-filled soft biscuits
• Parkin — Yorkshire oat and ginger cake