The Fly Lady's Favorite Fig Cake with Buttermilk Glaze

Fly Lady's Fig Cake

I have made this recipe many times. I got it from a July issue of Southern Living magazine 25 years ago. I have made this cake many times for Christmas. It has a bubbly sauce that you pour over it.

Marla Watson Cilley aka Fly Lady, Brevard NC

3 eggs

3/4 cup safflower or other vegetable oil

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour (or substitute up to 1 cup with either spelt or buckwheat flour)

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

 1/2 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons whiskey or bourbon, optional

2 cups coarsely chopped fig preserves or fig jam

1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped and toasted

Buttermilk Glaze

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup unrefined sugar

1/4 cup butter

1-1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube or Bundt® pan and set aside. Beat the eggs well until light yellow and smooth. Add the sugar and oil and continue beating well to make a thick, smooth batter.

Whisk together the flour(s), nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl until well-blended. Add half the flour mixture to the egg-and-sugar mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to blend well. Add the buttermilk, vanilla, and bourbon if using and mix well. Add the remaining flour and stir gently until well blended. Gently fold in the chopped figs and the walnuts.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes until the cake is brown and firm to the touch on top. It should spring back when you gently press it and a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean. While the cake bakes, prepare the glaze.

Combine the buttermilk, sugar, butter, cornstarch, and baking soda in a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Remove at once, stir well, and cool to room temperature. Add the vanilla, and set aside until the cake is done.

When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and cool it in the pan on a wire rack for about 15 minutes. Loosen the cake from the pan gently, running a table knife around the sides of the pan, and then turn it out onto the wire rack. Carefully transfer the cake right side up to a serving plate or cake stand, then spoon the glaze over the warm cake. Covered tightly, this cake will keep for about a week.

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Join Fly Lady on Facebook, Fly Lady TV, Twitter, Blog, or sign up like 3/4 of a million others do for her emails. Marla is a friend, who was born not far from me in west Tennessee, and now known around the world as the Fly Lady. She sent me this recipe and I wanted to share with you and to introduce you to Marla and perhaps you'll want to start taking flying lessons!

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