The recipe library
Find something new for your dinner here!
I want to share with you as many ways of using my produce as I can think of to encourage you to expand your cooking horizons. This is something I do as often as I can.
Good food can be as simple as good bread - good ripe tomatoes and great extra virgin olive oil, or a packet of quality pasta . Cooked in 11 minutes and tossed through with my mushroom paté if you haven’t time for anything else; add lots of fresh parsley; parmigiano and that great olive oil again and you’ve a meal you’ll be proud of.
You’ll see from the recipes that I can’t help myself when it comes to Verjuice; a great friend Damien Pignolet says ‘when in doubt – add Verjuice’ and I have to admit that’s exactly how I cook!
Burnt Fig Jam and Almond Cake
Serves 12 - 16
Ingredients:
1½ cups Self-raising flour
½ tsp Ground cinnamon
½ tsp Ground nutmeg
½ tsp Ground cloves
½ tsp Ground allspice
1 cup Caster sugar
½ cup Butter, softened
1 cup Burnt Fig Jam
2 Eggs
½ cup Milk
½ tsp Vanilla extract
½ cup Almonds - roasted 5 minutes at 180ºC then skins rubbed off
Crème Fraiche
4-6 Fresh figs, if available.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Grease and flour a 22cm round cake pan.
To prepare the cake, sift the flour and spices into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar. Using a mixer at medium speed, beat the butter, jams, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in the almonds.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 30 - 40 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted near the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan to cool completely on a wire rack.
When cool, cut the cake in half horizontally. Spread the bottom layer with Burnt Fig Jam and top with crème fraiche. Replace the top layer of cake and finish with more crème fraiche and halved fresh figs.