Chocolate and fig cake

As I have said before, figs are the Marmite of the fruit world; people either love them or hate them.  We fall in to the love camp, the two haters here being the junior Nethertons, now enjoying (semi) independent lives in fig free environments.
Never immune to a bargain, I bought a stash of figs when they were on offer at less than 10p each in our local Tesco earlier this week.
Two dozen of the purple beauties were gently poached in a syrup flavoured with orange sugar. 
Some were eaten for breakfast with yogurt, a couple were eaten with rye bread and blue cheese and eight of them have been added to a chocolate and rosemary cake.

Start by gently poaching eight figs in a little water, with a couple of teaspoons of honey or sugar.

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC

Grease a 9" savarin ring.  You could make this in a cake tin, but you may need to use your skill and judgement to adjust the cooking time.

70g 60% dark chocolate

60ml olive oil

60g natural yogurt ( I used Greek)

120g sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

120g self raising flour

Melt the chocolate, either in a microwave (sorry, absolutely no idea, we haven't got one!) or in a bowl over hot, not boiling water.

Whisk together the oil, yogurt, sugar and eggs.  Add the melted chocolate and rosemary and mix thoroughly. Stir in the flour and pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

Arrange the figs evenly around the cake and place in the oven.

Cook for approximately 35 minutes until it passes the skewer test.

Leave to stand for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.  Place a plate under the rack to catch any dripping fig juices.

Whilst still warm (but not hot), invert on to a serving plate, decorate with rosemary sprigs and serve with cream of yogurt.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2019 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk