Mike van de Elzen: Easter figgy and oozy caramel loaf

Easter figgy and oozy caramel loaf 

Fig topping  

125 gm unsalted butter  

150 gm soft brown sugar 

6 figs, stem removed and cut in half 

Cake mix  

225 gm unsalted butter, softened  

225 gm caster sugar  

4 eggs  

3 tbsp milk  

100 gm whole ground almonds  

1/2 tsp salt  

1 tsp ginger powder  

150 gm flour  

Serve with yogurt or ice-cream

To start:

Line a small cake loaf tin approx. 20cm x 12cm with greaseproof paper and then grease with a touch of butter.  

Melt butter in saucepan over a low heat. Add sugar and stir over heat until the mix becomes foamy and pale (2-3 minutes). Pour evenly into the greased loaf tin. Place the half figs, flesh side down and set aside.  

Preheat oven to 180*C.  

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. In another bowl, lightly beat eggs together with milk. Gradually add eggs to butter and sugar, beating well after each addition. Stir in ground almond, baking powder, salt, and ginger. Gently fold in flour. Pour cake mixture over figs, place on a baking tray and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into cake comes out clean.

Remove from oven and rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes before sliding a warm knife around the edge of the dish to loosen. Carefully invert to turn loaf out onto a board Slice into thick pieces, serve hot with yogurt or ice-cream.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It is time to talk to our resident chef, Mike
vand Alison.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Has the easter bunny been out in your place?

Speaker 4 (00:19):
There's still a little Easter bunning sitting by my bedside.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
There we go. Always good to have a little something
tacked away for later.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'll get there, I'll get there later. Hazel definitely had hers.
Ivy definitely had hers, and I think Hazel probably got
most of her Easter egg over the duvet and over
her bed.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
So now the sheep's all getting clean.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Fantastic. So I imagine that the Easter bunnies contribution in our
house will be long gone by the time I get home.
Today we're going to talk about figs. I don't think
I've ever done anything with a fig when it comes
to cooking it or preserving it or.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
Anything they can, they can be a lot, a bit tricky,
and like right now, figs are out. Now the trees
are the leaves will fall off and basically what you've
got left the branches of the tree and these enormous
figs that the birds haven't managed to get to yet.
So if you are thinking figs, now is the diamond,

(01:25):
and I guess they kind of play into that rolling
into autumn scenario as well. Our ones are brown turkeys
that we've got on our trees and it's misleading.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, someone go out and get the brown turkey.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, they do.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Look like a big brown turkey belly, so they are,
but they're not the mission.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Figs. I think are probably the better of the figs.
They tend to have the real bright red flesh and
are slightly sweeter and slightly more flavored than brown brown turkeys.
But you know, what do you do with figs?

Speaker 4 (01:58):
You can go into what we're doing here, which is
going to be the oozy caramel slice, or you could
just also keep them really simple. You could just turn
your oven onto to grill, cut your figs in half,
place them onto an oven tray over the top, just
to touch a bowl slomoic vinegar, just a touch of
soft brown sugar, and then toast them under the grill

(02:19):
for for like five minutes or until they just start
to collapse because eat.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Them with ice cream and things, don't they well.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
And that at that point you could then serve them
hot over some ice cream, or you could serve them
with a grilled a loomy cheese salad. Or we used
to back in the day, I used to make a
smoked Marlon risotto and I would serve these figs over
the top of the smoke Malon risotto.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Quite bizarre, isn't it So? Yeah, but it worked for
all that.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I've never actually cocktail done anything with the figure. I
have enjoyed a lot of fig chutney too.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
And that's and that's where we tend to go a
lot of times, and that works better with the dried figs.
So you wouldn't really use a fresh fig in a
fig I don't think you would because it just collapses.
And I think with a fig chuckney, you kind of
want to maintain the firmness of that fig, or at
least the shape of that piece of fig, where for

(03:19):
fresh figs.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
You tend to go.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Trying to keep the shape and keep the flavor of
that fig going. So I thought I thought I'd do
an Easter fig and oozy caramel loaf.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Love it doesn't that sound love? It does?

Speaker 2 (03:36):
It sounds really good.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
It is a loaf, but it could also be a slice.
It could also you.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Could also make this in a cupcake format, or a
muffin format, or a steam pudding format. So I've got
a loaf tin for this, it's about twenty twelve centimeter
and then you want to you want to line it
with greaseproof paper at least the bottom, and then maybe
just use some butter and just rub the sides of
the loafes tins with butter. Then into a pot you

(04:05):
go one hundred and twenty unsalted butter. Just melt that
slowly and then add in one hundred and fifty grams
of soft brown sugar, bring it up to up to
the ball, and then just continue to cook that for
about two or three minutes until the mixture becomes foamy
and starts to become light and pale in color. Once
you've reached that and it starts to foam up nicely,

(04:25):
turn that off and then pour that into the bottom
of your greased loafting.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
So that's the caramel element done. And then I've got.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Six figs, depending on the size and how many you
can fit into your loaftin, cut them in half, take
the little hard stem off, and then lay them down
flesh side down into your muffin tee on top of
that caramel, and then just set that aside. Turn your
oven one hundred and eighty degrees and then take another
one hundred sorry.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Two hundred and twenty five grams unsalted butter. Put that
into a mixer.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Start to crean that up with two hundred and twenty
five grams a cast of sugar. Once that's light and fluffy,
into a bowl, you go four eggs with three tablespoons
of milk.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Just give that a light whisk, and.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Then while you're beating the eggs or sorry, the caster
sugar and butter, just slowly pour the egg mixture into it.
Just a little bit out of time. It will kind
of separate out and then it'll come together. It will
separate out, come together until you've got all their egg mix.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
In and then you want to stir.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
And I've got one hundred grams of the ground almonds,
a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of ground ginger powder,
one hundred and fifty grams of plain flour, and a
teaspoon of baking powder.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's your cake battle cake mix done.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Pour that over the top of your figs that are
sitting in that beautiful caramel fire that into an oven
one hundred and eighty degrees. It's going to take about
forty minutes. But the way to check it is just
chuck a skewer into it. If it comes out nice
and clean, then you're good to go. Pull it out
of the oven. Just let it sit for a couple
of minutes before you can handle it, and then just
run a knife around.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
The outside, fold it out, peel off that.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Greaseproof paper, and then you should have the finished proroduct
and you can from there you can serve it with
some ice cream, you can slice the next day, you
can toast it, or you could just have it as
nice a little bit of afternoon teas.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio