Ever since I saw Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen program and her salty cake recipe in there, I’ve been in love with salty cakes – a type of cake that I’ve never known before which existed. I’ve made many salty cake recipes after that myself, but this one is one of the most scrumptious salty cakes I’ve baked yet.

 

 

I’ve been thinking about using dried figs in a salty cake recipe for a while but I wasn’t sure what other ingredients should accompany it. I thought of many kinds of cheese and nuts, kind of reflecting the original salty cake idea that I fell in love with: a sweet dried fruit, a type of cheese and a type of nut.

 

 

 

Finally it dawned on me. I’ve used the trio of fresh figs, blue cheese and walnuts many times in salads with a few additional ingredients. So why not convert this combo into a salty cake, but with dried figs instead.

 

 

So this recipe only requires a bit of chopping and a bit of mixing and you’re good to go. You don’t even need an electric mixer. But if you have one and you want to use it, go ahead.

 

The only tricky part is not to overfold the dry and wet ingredients at the last stage as folding too much will end in too much gluten and it will make the cake too stiff. So as soon as dry ingredients are wet, stop folding and transfer the batter into the pan. That’s it!

 

 

You can eat this cake as a healthy snack with coffee or tea in afternoon, you can eat it as a light but nutritious lunch together with a fresh and simple salad, you can even eat it for breakfast if you want a good boost to your day. It’s delicious at any part of the day!
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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty:  ★☆☆ (Easy)
(makes 1 loaf, in a pan about 24x7cm)

 

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

 

5 dl (or 250 gr. or 2 cups) all-purpose flour*
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt**
1.8 dl (or 100 gr. or 3/4 cup) walnuts, roughly chopped
3 dl + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp (or 200 gr. or 1 1/3 cups) dried figs, roughly chopped
200 gr. blue cheese, roughly chopped in cubes
4 eggs
1.5 dl (or 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp) olive oil
1 dl (or 1/3 cup + 4 tsp) milk
1/2 dl (or 50 gr. or 3 tbsp + 1 tsp) plain yogurt

 

*You can convert this cake into gluten free by using the same amount of gluten free flour blend as all-purpose flour and adding 1 more eggs (so by using 5 eggs in total).
**Blue cheese is a pretty salty cheese so adjust this salt measurement according to your own taste.

 

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1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 24x7cm loaf pan and cover 2 sides and bottom with a baking paper.

 

 

2. In a large mixing bowl, put flour, baking powder and salt and whisk it.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Add walnuts, dried figs and blue cheese and fold them so that all these ingredients are covered well with flour mixture. Set aside.

 

 

 

 

 

4. In another large mixing bowl, put eggs and whisk them well for about 20 seconds until they are a bit pale and that’s it.

 

 

 

5. Add olive oil, milk and yogurt and whisk until they are all well mixed.

 

 

 

 

 

6. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and fold until just the dry ingredients all evenly get wet.

 

 

 

7. Transfer the batter into prepared loaf pan and smoothen the surface a bit with a spatula (if you wish). Put in the oven, in medium rack and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. When it’s ready and out of the oven, let it cool in the pan for about 15 to minutes and then gently take it out of the pan to let cool for half an hour more. After this, just slice it gently (I use a bread knife) and eat! Enjoy!