Name: Hazelnut-Dried Fig Upside Down Cake
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon whole milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; Sour cream or crème fraîche, for garnish; 11−12 dried mission figs, stemmed and cut in half lengthwise; ¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar; 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice; 2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter; 6 tablespoons (¼ cup + ⅛ teaspoon) hazelnut meal flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill); Scant ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon unsalted butter; 1 large egg, separated; 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; Water to just cover the figs; 1½ tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Cast-Iron Cooking for Two

By Joanna Pruess

Published 2019

About

I grew up in Southern California, where Spanish monks first cultivated black Mission figs in America. I liked them well enough, but when Peter McGrath suggested a dried fig-hazelnut upside-down cake, I got excited. It evoked memories of Fig Newtons from my childhood, the delicious hazelnuts in Piedmont, Italy, and finally the all-American pineapple upside-down cake baked by Mita Antolini, a neighbor of my friend, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, the food writer, when I visited her in Tuscany. What a c