Skip to main content

Dark Chocolate and Fig Cake


I am "recycling" this post for Sweet New Zealand (just to show you that it can be done :-), and I am doing it now because this month our lovely host Sue from Coucous & Consciousness has put a linky tool to make submitting posts easier, and I cannot wait to try it!!!! 

I am so happy that Sweet NZ is already in its third month, and I would like to thank all the bloggers for taking part. I have made a page on my main blog dedicated to it, with the link for each month's recap.
If you like to take part in Sweet New Zealand #3, October 2011, please go to this link!



Dark Chocolate and Fig Cake


I made this last Autumn, but figs will be ripening again this Summer, so this recipe can come handy soon. Also, I have received so many positive feedbacks about this, especially from Italian bloggers who  have started to making it now (it is Autumn up there!!), and it also works well with other fruit too, even canned pears! And didn't someone made it with Feijoas? Who was it? I forgot, but there you are, you can use what you like :-).





We have a fig tree up on the road, our neighbours planted it many years ago, and passers-by help themselves with the fruit every Autumn. More than harvesting I would say that this is foraging, in the Waitakere Ranges there are several fig trees, and everybody can pick the fruit, possibly before the birds do (they spread the seeds and fig trees are becoming a noxious weed in the bush!). 



 

For this recipe I used a 250 g bar of Whittaker's Dark Ghana Chocolate. Break the chocolate and melt with 100 g of butter (salted, if you can). In the meantime divide 3 eggs and beat the whites into stiff peaks.


Stir the melted chocolate and butter with a spatula or spoon, then add 2 tbsp of sugar, the 3 egg yolks, 1 tsp vanilla paste (or a few drops of pure vanilla essence) and 3 tbsp self-rising flour.




Gently fold in the egg whites.



Wash and cut the figs into halves, then place, cut-size down, into a baking tin lined with baking paper.

 



Cover with the chocolate mixture and bake at 180°C for approximately 30 minutes: the sides of the cake should look perfectly cooked, but the centre should still be a little tender and moist.




 



Wait at least 5 hours before tipping the cake onto a serving dish and removing the baking paper from the top (and what a pretty pattern!). This cake is semi-soft and very chocolatey, and the figs give colour as well as pairing well with dark chocolate. As an alternative you can also use pears.






Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©


Comments

  1. Never tried cake with figs, looks fabulous..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful dessert made from figs. Wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Torta fantastica! I fichi poi sono veramente buonissimi! Un abbraccio

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've never tried figs, but they make very pretty decorations to the cake...:)!

    ReplyDelete
  5. How pretty is that, lovely cake.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chocolate cake with figs looks awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  7. !Maravillosos y dulces higos...me encantan!! Una idea genial acompañarlos con chocolate...un bizcocho delicioso, en mi opinión.
    Saludos.

    ReplyDelete
  8. OMG I love the look of this cake. Fresh figs are a real favourite & paired with chocolate, sounds like a winning combination. Thanks for sharing with Sweet NZ and for showing everyone that you can recycle an older post. Good timing too for this one with summer coming on :-)
    Sue xo

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel

Kamo Kamo Maori Squash and Italian Borlotti Beans

A crop which gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews; in particular I like soups with pumpkins, but since this year I am traveling on, I will not enjoy the pumpkins that are growing in my garden. So I tried a different 'pairing'. A friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil...) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork. I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery. Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft. I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be goo