Fig, pecan and orange loaf
John Whaite bakes up a lovely seasonal cake with fig and orange flavours with a great texture. He says it's a lot like carrot cake and makes perfect toast when it starts to go stale!
And - believe it or not - it also goes really well with stilton cheese...
Ingredients:
250g salted butter, at room temperature400g light brown soft sugarZest of 2 medium oranges2 eggs300ml buttermilk (see below for alternative for this if needed)1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or extract300g plain flour2 tsp baking powder2 tsp ground cinnamon200g pecans, chopped200g dried figs, roughly chopped
For the drizzle
150g icing sugar200g full fat cream cheeseZest and juice of 1 orange
Method:
Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/Gas 3
Place the softened butter in a mixing bowl and add the sugar and zest. Beat together until the sugar is well incorporated in the butter and it is fluffy.
Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and beat in. Sift over the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, and stir in until you have a smooth batter. Fold in the pecans and figs, then scoop into the greased ring shaped mould tin or loaf tin.
Bake for 60–75 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin – this will help to create a gorgeous crust on the cake
Beat together your ‘drizzle’ ingredients (icing sugar, cream cheese and orange juice and zest) until smooth and fairly runny. Drizzle over the baked round/loaf cake.
Find out how to make John's cobweb cake