Recipe: Cinnamon Cake with Maple Baked Figs

Cinnamon Cake with Maple Baked Figs by Mercy Fenton
"This is such a lovely light cake, moist and tasty, it is perfect to serve with fruit compote or, as in this cake, baked figs," says Mercy Fenton in her weekly column.
"It will keep well for two to three days. It’s made with simple ingredients that will almost always be found in your cupboard, so this is easy to make at short notice."
40gr brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
170gr butter
200gr sugar
2 eggs
250gr cream flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
245 ml sour milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract.
- Pre-heat the oven to 165C.
- In a little dish, stir together the brown sugar and cinnamon.
- Line the base of an 8 inch square tin with parchment.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
- Sift together the cream flour, bread soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add ½ the dry ingredients to the batter, fold in gently, then half the sour milk and mix in well.
- Repeat to use up all the ingredients.
- Spoon a third of the batter into the prepared tin, sprinkle with half the sugar, then repeat.
- Cover with the final third of batter and carefully level the mixture.
- Bake in the centre of pre-heated oven for 40-50 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven, allow to cool in the tin before turning out to remove parchment paper.
- Cut into slices to serve with figs.
8 figs, halved
2 tbsp. maple syrup or clear honey
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Juice of one orange
- Heat oven to 200C/180C.
- Cut the figs in half down the length of the fig.
- Lay the figs in an ovenproof roasting dish, and drizzle with honey or maple syrup.
- Sprinkle over the sugar and cinnamon, then pour over the orange juice and mix lightly.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until bubbling and tender.
- Serve warm or chilled drizzled with some of the cooking juices.