Food Lust People Love: spice

This summer I went to a farmers’ market in New Iberia, Louisiana with my grandmother. We bought a bunch of figs and I made her fig preserves. I mean I made fig preserves for her, from HER own recipe. Simplest recipe ever and you can find it here. On that same visit, she let me clear out the drawer of recipes and cookbooks that she had accumulated over the years and take them home with me. Amongst them, I found her handwritten recipe for fig cake with buttermilk glaze.

Unfortunately, I had sent her all the fig preserves I made so, how to make the cake? Until I found this on the shelf at my local Carrefour in Cairo.

Back in business! Are the Carrefour preserves as a good as Gram’s homemade ones? Probably not. But this cake is awesome and delicious and it is also my contribution for November’s edition of BundtaMonth where we are making spice cake. Scroll on down to the bottom of this post to see links to all the lovely spice Bundt cakes that have been made this month. Gram has a serious sweet tooth and I think she would like them all! Many thanks to our hosts for this challenge: Anuradha at Baker Street and Lora at Cake Duchess.

My grandmother will turn 99 years old next month – on 22 December - and we are hoping and praying that she continues in good health so we can celebrate 100 years next year. And many birthdays thereafter. We think she has a shot at a world record. She still asks to go to the casino on her birthday because they give her free money to gamble! We should all live so long and so well.

Here she is hopping up on the red swing in her yard last summer. Red has always been her favorite color and the swing is her favorite place to hang out.

Her one true love lately is this cat she calls Minou. Which means Kitty in French. All of her cats over the years have been called Minou. Because she has a great sense of humor and it keeps life simple.

And one last photo where she is smiling. That's a hard one to catch. With her two youngest children, my Aunt Nonnie and Uncle Kippy. :) My father is her eldest and he just turned 77 this month. Imagine if your child is 77! Love you, Gram!

Ingredients
For the Bundt:
2 cups or 250g flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups or 340g sugar
1 cup or 225g butter, melted and cooled
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk
3 eggs
1 cup fig preserves (if using homemade, chop the figs and use the juice as well)
1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans because I am pretty sure that’s what Gram would have used.)
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the glaze:
1 cup or 220g sugar
1/2 cup or 120ml buttermilk
1 tablespoon corn syrup or Lyle’s Golden Syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons or 60g butter

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease and flour your Bundt pan liberally.

Mix dry ingredients, add butter and beat well.

Add eggs one at a time, alternating with buttermilk.

Scrape down the bowl.

Then add figs, nuts and vanilla. Beat for another couple of minutes on medium.

Pour into the prepared Bundt pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool for at least 10 minutes then run a knife or wooden skewer around the pan edges to loosen. I clearly overfilled my pan so I had to cut around the middle to make sure it would release.

Put your cake plate on top of the Bundt pan and invert. If you have greased and floured it well, the cake should drop out easily. Allow to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, let’s make the glaze. Mix all ingredients and boil for six minutes, stirring constantly. The original recipe says three minutes but the glaze was very runny and I figured, even on a cooled cake, most of it would end up on the cake plate below.

Allow to cool until it thickens slightly. Drizzle over cake.

This glaze hardens somewhat and turns almost clear on the cake, making a shiny sticky, chewy outside which is the perfect match for the tender crumb inside. I cannot tell you how freaking good this is. Hats off to you, Gram! It’s a winner.