Grandma’s fig cake, very soft and made with yogurt. When the first figs begin to appear and August afternoons turn cloudy, we know summer is ending and the craving for cakes and bundts takes over. Grandma loved figs and made everything with them: she prepared fig jam to accompany cheeses, made little fig cookies and fig tarts, and when we visited her in late summer we already knew figs would star in our snacks. Grandma didn’t like to follow recipes; she always improvised, but one ingredient never missed in her cakes: yogurt. Do you know why? Because yogurt is Grandma’s secret to making cakes soft, moist and just delicious, and it helps them stay soft for several days. Yesterday I picked the few figs my little tree managed to produce, I thought of Grandma and her cakes, and inspired by her way of cooking I made this very soft and delicious fig cake. The aroma was so good my children couldn’t wait to taste it — too bad they had to wait while I set up a photo shoot before they could devour it! Would you like to learn how to make a very soft fig cake that stays tender for many days? Follow me in the kitchen, and if you want to stay updated on all my recipes you can follow my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here).

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Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Very inexpensive
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Portions: 10
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: Summer

Ingredients to make grandma’s fig cake

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
7/8 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup Greek yogurt (150 g)
6 tbsp sunflower oil (high-oleic preferred (about 80 g))
1 cup fresh figs, peeled (about 150 g)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
as needed lemon juice
4 figs (for topping)
as needed chopped hazelnuts (for topping)
1 sachet baking powder

Tools

1 Cake pan 9.5 in (24 cm)
Oven
Bowl
Mixer

Steps

Peel the figs, chop about 1 1/3 cups (200 g) into small pieces and set aside the rest. Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer until the mixture is frothy and airy, then add the yogurt and the oil.
Add the flour and mix, then fold in the chopped figs using the mixer. Finish by adding the baking powder and the vanilla extract.
Butter a cake pan, pour in the batter and level it. Arrange the figs sliced into rounds on top, sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and some coarse sugar. Bake in a conventional oven at 338°F for 1 hour; do the toothpick test before removing from the oven.
Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Store at room temperature under a glass dome or in a suitable container and consume within a few days before it dries out too much. This cake stays soft and moist for at least 3–4 days.