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It’s that time of the year again, in more ways than one. Early fall seems to be my usual time for disappearing and/or reappearing here, since it’s my usual time for starting new things, like degree programs, jobs, household projects, not to mention finally making an honest man out of His Lordship. It’s also the time we get a sizable shipment of dried figs from my father-in-law, which I’ve previously documented.

This cake, which marks my renewal of the Sunday baking and blogging tradition, is apropos of all of that, since it was inspired by a dinner out last weekend to commemorate our anniversary, the start of my new career, and our return to the East Coast.

We resume our narrative at a big-deal local restaurant named after an eating implement, which originally witnessed the very-long-in-coming decision to de-sin our relationship. While the meal was enjoyable and the company was naturally delightful, one of our “small-plate” desserts (a trend about which I have very mixed feelings) was quite the let-down. In principle, it sounded like the perfect not-too-heavy ending: an individual olive oil cake with Marcona almonds, garnished with figs. In practice, the cake was dry, crumbly, and tasted of neither olive oil nor almonds. The only saving grace was that the figs in the accompanying garnish were fresh and very nicely presented.

With the first bite, I knew I could do it better, since I already had a great and easy olive oil cake in my repertoire. I had figs that, while not fresh, were so lovingly grown and processed that they were still brightly green and tender, which reminded me of a old-favorite recipe for figs and apricots reconstituted in a honey-lemon syrup. I didn’t have almonds, but since they had added nothing at all, I quickly dropped that element altogether.

My path clear, I proceeded to do it better the very next day, on the first try, in about an hour and with minimal kitchen messing-up. Unlike the original, this cake is moist and beautifully springy in crumb, and delicately perfumed in ways that really do hint at sun-dappled groves. The glistening green-and orange compote instantly clicked with the cake and added even more Mediterranean flair, not to mention perfect fall color.

Not a bad way to make a comeback, one-upping an award-winning institution. Sometime soon I’m going to try improving on the rather bland butternut risotto I had as an entree, after a faultless appetizer of wild mushrooms en croute and a Calvados sidecar that made me want to rush across the Ben Franklin to stock up on hassle-free apple brandy for future cocktail applications.

Olive Oil Cake with Honeyed Fig-Apricot Compote
(Adapted from Sally Schneider, The Improvisational Cook and The Moosewood Collective, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant)
Serves 8

For the cake:

3/4 cup each “white” whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large eggs
Zest of one large lemon
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup each milk and yogurt (preferably Greek)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan, lined with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a glass measuring cup, thin the yogurt down with the milk, then whisk in the olive oil until emulsified. (I’ll warn you, it won’t look at all pretty.)

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, lemon zest and sugar by hand until frothy and and the sugar is starting to dissolve. Whisk in the flour mixture until mostly incorporated, then stir in the swampy-green yogurt and oil emulsion.

Scrape the batter into the cake pan and bake about 45 minutes, until the top springs back when gently pressed, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake for five minutes in the pan, then invert, peel off the parchment, and cool completely on a rack.

For the compote:

3 cups boiling water
1/3 cup honey
2 cups dried figs, sliced into eighths
1 cup dried apricots, quartered
Juice of one lemon (the same one zested for the cake)

While the cake is baking and cooling, mix the honey and water in a medium saucepan. Add the fruit, bring to a boil, and simmer until the fruit is tender and the syrup has reduced and thickened, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Once the cake has cooled, serve generous slices with the compote on the side.

While it’s best the day it’s baked, the cake will keep well for several days at room temperature, tightly wrapped in plastic. Any leftover compote can be spooned into a small container and schlepped to work the next day with a single serving of even more yogurt, turning your Monday morning into an entirely different experience.

Notes:

A good, but not great, olive oil is what you’re aiming for here. You want one that is fruity and flavorful, but don’t waste your $40-a-bottle, murky-green unfiltered Tuscan early-harvest on an application that will bake out most of its divinity. Save that one for salads, and grab the $5 a bottle California estate stuff from Trader Joe’s instead.

I use the “white” whole wheat flour both to add flavor and to make the cake marginally healthier — although with no butter and all that “good” fat, it’s already about as good-for-you as you can make a cake that’s still absolutely delicious. If you don’t have it on hand, go ahead and use a total of 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour instead.

You can use 1/2 cup of buttermilk instead of the yogurt and milk, although I don’t know about you, but I’m much more likely to have yogurt around during the last-minute, MUST HAVE CAKE NOW occasions when this recipe comes in particularly handy. Likewise, regular plain yogurt is fine instead of the Greek yogurt, but I usually stock the Greek kind, and there’s something particularly appropriate about using it in a cake based on olive oil.

Incidentally, the cake is equally wonderful in the summer with fresh berries or nectarines, preferably macerated with a tiny bit of sugar in orange juice or white wine.

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When Life Gives You Figs

Make fig bars!

His Lordship’s father has quite the green thumb, and grows a variety of fruit in a backyard micro-orchard.  Each fall, he has a bumper crop of figs, which he painstakingly stems, halves, and dries.  Since fig season immediately precedes His Lordship’s birthday, around this time each year we receive a care package bearing a card and a gift, plus many zip-top bags full of beautifully jade-and-tan seedy little hemispheres.

They are delicious, completely organic, better than any you could get in a store, and utterly free.  They are also so copious that we always end up putting the half-full box on top of the fridge before Thanksgiving, and there they’ll remain in suspended animation until we remember they exist, probably shortly before the next batch is due.

Vowing to do better this year, I seized one of the bags for immediate use in baking.  After the success of the granola bars, I aimed for a not-too-sweet cookie that leaned toward a breakfast bar and could be snarfed between classes.  The need for portability meant that instead of my usual press-in-the-pan layered approach, I would have to go to the extra effort of rolling out dough to fully enclose the sticky figgy filling.  I also wanted to make it a little healthier by using whole wheat pastry flour in addition to all-purpose.

Since the interwebs didn’t offer any one recipe for a fig cookie or filled cereal bar that seemed to fit all my needs, I ended up combining elements from around five different recipes in addition to my own ideas, and am quite pleased with the outcome.  Flavoring the figs with orange and just a hint of cardamom gave them a boost without detracting from their essential figgyness, and the whole wheat pastry flour added a nutty roundness that supported the homey and crackly filling without making the cookies punitively cardboardy, as whole wheat pastries can sometimes be.

These bars have a just-sweet-enough, not-too-rich quasi-cakey wholesomeness that is just right for this time of year and perfect with a cup of tea.  Since I think my father-in-law would approve, and in keeping with the tradition whereby Fig Newtons got their name, I’m naming these after the California birthplace of the figs.

Fig bar assembly

Incidentally, His Lordship’s family is also an excellent source of lemons, which I certainly would never dream of complaining about.  When we still lived in the vicinity, I used to bring home huge grocery bags full of regular and my best-beloved Meyer lemons from each gathering of the in-laws.  Now that we’re back on the same coast, I fully intend to haul back as much as I can from our holiday visit.

Fig Fremont Bars
Makes 40-50 1-inch bars

Dough:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Filling:
2 cups halved dried green figs
1 teaspoon dried orange rind or 1 tablespoon grated fresh orange zest
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups orange juice
2 cups water
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 pinches salt

Raw sugar for sprinkling

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well between additions, then beat in the vanilla.

In another bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Add the dry ingredients to the mixer, and combine well.  (Since these will be rolled out and do need some tensile strength, for once you don’t have to be too paranoid about over-mixing, but don’t walk away from the mixer either.)  Divide dough in half and place each half in its own quart-sized zip-top bag, patting and squishing into an even, flat square.  Chill dough for at least an hour.

While the dough is chilling, place the figs, orange rind or zest, sugar, juice and water in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer until the figs are very tender, 30-40 minutes.  If necessary, cover the pan halfway through to prevent the liquid from evaporating completely.

When the figs are tender, remove from the heat and blend with an immersion blender (or in a food processor or blender) until smooth.  Stir in the cardamom and salt, and set aside to cool completely.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using scissors, trim the top and sides off the first bag of dough, flip the bag open, and turn the dough gently out onto another sheet of parchment.  Cover the dough with either the cut-open bag or more parchment to prevent it sticking to the rolling pin, and roll into a long rectangle approximately 18 inches by 6 inches, squaring off the edges with a pizza cutter or sharp knife if needed.

Spread half the filling lengthwise down the center third of the dough, leaving space at the top and bottom for proper sealing.  Brush the exposed dough with water, then use the parchment to flip each edge lengthwise over the filling, overlapping slightly in the middle.  Press the edges together gently to seal.

Turn the roll onto the baking sheet on the diagonal, seam side down.  Brush the top of the roll with water and sprinkle liberally with raw sugar.

Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and beginning to crack slightly along the top.  Remove from oven and set on a wire rack to cool while repeating the process with the remainind dough and filling.

When the rolls are mostly or completely cooled, slice into inch-wide bars with a serrated knife.

Notes:

The small amount of cream cheese adds both flavor and flexibility to the dough, a trick I picked up from (big surprise) Cook’s Illustrated’s holiday all-in-one cookie dough recipe.  You could leave it out, if you prefer not to open a new container of cream cheese for just one tablespoon.

If these aren’t sweet enough for you, you could glaze the bars with a simple icing of powdered sugar thinned with milk or more orange juice to a drizzling consistency.

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While we’re on this theme…

Pistachio Yogurt Cake with Figs, Blueberries and Peaches

Wherein we continue to head in a vaguely Middle Eastern direction, with some promising initial results.

One of my stand-by choices for Sunday baking is the French yogurt cake I originally discovered on Chocolate and Zucchini, which yields grandmere levels of deliciousness from box-mix levels of effort, just the thing when I want cake now. It’s so simple and so good that I’ve used it in my class for foreign students with zero baking experience, and they were able to reproduce it perfectly all by themselves the very next day.

To take to work on Monday morning, I used the basic recipe to make cupcakes iced with an espresso and cardamom infused ganache inspired by Turkish coffee, and decorated along the edges with ground pistachios. They were fine, but considerably less interesting than I had hoped. In particular, the ganache was too rich and bittersweet for the chiffon texture and mild flavor of the cake and the pistachio flavor was negligible.

Since I still liked the idea of combining yogurt, cardamom and pistachios, on Monday evening I decided to try again. I put the pistachios inside the cake by replacing part of flour with ground nuts, and spiced it with a hint of cardamom and cinnamon. I added a few more regional elements to reinforce the theme: honey, a splash of orange flower water, and a compatible addition from a little further up the Mediterranean, in the form of Tuaca, an Italian liqueur with vanilla and citrus flavors that I find very handy to have around for baking.

This slightly different approach worked much better. The cake was nutty but not aggressively “pistachio” in flavor, and the honey, spices and extracts added a hint of perfume without evoking potpourri, which can be a real danger with flower water. The plain cake was summery and fresh served with a salad of figs, peaches and blueberries in a very simple syrup that moistened both the fruit and the cake. The addition of a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream, while not necessary, certainly didn’t hurt.

Unusual but not outre, this would be a nice end to a meal featuring Northern African, Eastern Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Indian dishes.

Pistachio Yogurt Cake with Fig, Peach and Blueberry Salad
Serves 8-10

Cake:
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
14 tablespoons granulated sugar (1 cup minus two tablespoons)
2 tablespoons strong-flavored honey
1/3 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
2 eggs
1 tablespoon Tuaca or brandy
1/4 teaspoon orange flower water
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup finely ground raw, unsalted pistachios
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon each ground cardamom and cinnamon

Fruit Salad:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups water
1/3 cup Tuaca or brandy
Juice of 1 lemon

1 pint blueberries
6-8 fresh figs, cut into wedges
2 peaches, peeled and diced

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9-inch nonstick cake pan with parchment.

In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, sugar, honey, oil, eggs, Tuaca and orange flower water until homogeneous.

In a separate bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, pistachios, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir dry ingredients into the yogurt mixture, gently but thoroughly, until no dry flour lumps remain.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes in pan, then turn out, remove parchment, and let cool completely on a wire rack.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup by combining sugar and water in a small saucepan and bringing to a boil. Simmer for two minutes, then decant into a heat-proof liquid measuring cup and cool to room temperature. Stir in the liquor and lemon juice. Combine fruit in a large bowl, pour over enough syrup to just cover the fruit, and allow to macerate in the refrigerator until ready to serve the cake.

Spoon a generous portion of fruit and its soaking syrup over each slice of cake before serving. Garnish with sweetened whipped cream if desired.

Notes:

The extra syrup can be used to sweeten iced tea, lemonade, cocktails, or any other summertime beverages. If not using immediately, cover tightly and store in refrigerator.

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