Rebellious fig, thyme & hazelnut cake two ways

Taking deliciously sinful pleasure in a fig born of rebellion and two fig cake recipes to revel in it.

A lesson in ignoring manuals

If ever there was an illustration of why most gardening manuals should be ignored, it is my fig tree. When it came to us, many years ago, as a tiny twig in a pot, I reached for my well-thumbed and obsessively annotated RHS gardening manual to research the approved methods for nurturing it.

Dutifully, I planted it exactly as instructed in a pot in a sunny spot on the patio and began dreaming of figs for breakfast.

Each year I waited, and each year the baby figs, (if fruit there was, some years there wasn’t even that) grew into little, green marbles then stopped, remaining small and hard as bullets clinging to spindly, twiggy branches and sulking. By September, every year, you would find me clutching my RHS bible, jabbing at the highlighted section with my finger. “It says specifically to keep the roots restricted.”

I continued to follow the rules and remained figless. I became adept at creating recipes using fig leaves instead (fig-wrapped feta and fig leaf pannacotta, for example, since you ask).

Until.

A couple of years ago, in an uncharacteristic moment of rebellion sparked by I know not what, I took the fig out of its pot where it had malingered for at least 8 years and….. put it in the ground.

Yes, I planted it against a south-facing, sheltered stone wall, and yes, the ground is a bit rubbly there, but no, its roots were not restricted.

And guess what?

Yup, you got it in one. It has flourished. In fact, it has become almost unmanageable. This year we have picked approximately 50 (FIFTY!) sweet, voluptuous, sinfully rule-breaking figs. And I can tell you that the thrill of biting into a just-picked, sun-warm fig is imbued with even greater lascivious relish when it comes with the knowledge that all of this only happened because I broke the rules.

Now all I need to do, is work out how to prune it. Not a problem I ever thought I’d have. Wish me luck.

And in the meantime, these cakes – one with gluten, one without, but essentially the same flavours – celebrate the delicious pleasure of a fig born of rebellion.

Fig, thyme and hazelnut cake (with gluten)

I use orange thyme here. Its slightly citrus fragrance is a lovely companion to the floral figs, but regular thyme will do nicely too. And use whatever cake tin you have, this mixture is very forgiving and will not sink, burn or dry out if made in different dimensions. I sometimes make it in a loaf tin for slicing into crumbly, fat slices.

Serves 8-10

• 200g salted butter, softened

• 200g golden caster sugar

• ½ tbsp thyme, finely chopped