Figgy Breakfast Tray Bake Recipe by Alexandra Dudley

By Alexandra Dudley

This week food writer and cook, Alexandra Dudley, launched her first book Land & Sea - a celebration of real food and wholesome ingredients. To celebrate the launch she kindly shared this recipe with us, the delicious Figgy Breakfast Tray Bake. Needless to say, it goes perfectly with a cup of tea - we like it with our rich, malty Assam. 

The riper the figs the better this cake is so any bruised fellows are perfect. The overripe fruit has a wonderful self jamming effect resulting in a wonderfully squidgy cake. I keep the sugar to a mere 50g as the juicy figs lend a lot of natural sweetness to the cake. The smell when you take this out of the oven is heavenly. I like to serve it with some Greek or coconut yogurt but it is just as delicious as it is and doubles up as a lovely afternoon tea too. 

What you need

• 12 ripe figs
• 200g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 50g light brown soft or coconut sugar
• zest of 1 orange, juice of half
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 60g/3 good knobs unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line an oven proof tray with baking parchment. I use one about 22 by 32cm
2. Separate your four firmest figs and set them aside. Roughly chop the remaining six. Don’t worry if they are very soft and go a little jammy. This is what we are looking for.
3. In a large bowl whisk together your ground almonds, baking powder, cinnamon, coconut sugar and zest of your orange.
4. In a separate smaller bowl whisk your eggs together before adding your vanilla, the juice of half of your orange and melted butter.
5. Pour your wet mix as well as your chopped figs into the almond mix and fold to combine.
6. Pour into your tin and flatten the top with the back of your spoon.
7. Slice the remaining four figs and arrange these on the top of the batter.
8. Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes or until you can insert a tooth pick and pull it out relatively clean. Remember there are squishy figs in there so it’s a bit of guesswork but the top should be nicely golden brown and the middle firm.
9. Allow your cake to cool a little before serving it and make sure you let it cool completely before transferring it to an air tight container to store. This cake will keep for up to four days.

Alexandra's book Land & Sea, is available to purchase from Foyles.