Basque cake filled with figs and cream

When Beatriz, author of To Be Gourmet , told me that she wanted to make the Basque Cake recipe for our blog, I did not hesitate to say "Go ahead!", because it is one of my favorite cakes. That delicious cream-filled dough has always enchanted me! She presents it to us with a double filling: figs and pastry cream , a luxurious combination in a cake that you will surely love to prepare at home, you'll see!

The "Basque Cake" is one of my favorite sweets. Its origin is in the farmhouses of the Basque Country where it was made with a dough based on butter, flour and almonds and filled with the fruit that was in season at that time. The cherries were very typical, also the fruits of the forest; blackberries, blueberries, and of course with figs.

Later the pastry cream was incorporated and over time the fruit began to be dispensed with. I still like the recipe that has both. I love making it homemade from start to finish; go to the market and make the sweet myself with the fruits.

Now in the north we have green figs called “lady's neck”, which are pure honey. To make the cut of the cake more attractive, I like to add a handful of blackberries so that the jam takes on a beautiful red hue.

A delight that you will find in the best pastry shops in the Basque Country and for which today we bring you the original recipe.

De Buyer copper saucepan , cutting board , Le Creuset damascus steel knife and Emile Henry ceramic pan .

Ingredients

• 200g of very cold butter
• 300g of flour
• 150g of sugar
• 60g of ground almonds
• 2 eggs
• Salt
• Another egg to brush the cake
• Oil to grease the mold

For the cream:

• 400ml of whole milk
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 40g of sugar
• 50g of flour
• 2 eggs
• 50g of butter

For the fig jam:

• 300g of figs (or 250g of figs and 50g of blackberries)
• 3 spoonfuls of sugar
• 50/75ml of water

Emile Henry ceramic mold , Le Creuset damascus steel knife and French De Buyer mineral iron skillet .

Preparation

Custard cream

1. We put part of the milk in a glass and in it we dilute the flour, vanilla, sugar and eggs.
2. Place the remaining milk and cinnamon in a saucepan over the heat. When it boils, add the previous mixture, stirring with the help of some whisks , and bring to a boil again.
3. We keep a couple of minutes and add the butter at the end.
4. Reserve the pastry cream covered with flush transparent film.

fig jam

1. In a saucepan or frying pan , place the figs, peeled and cut very small, and a handful of blackberries to give more colour.
2. Add the sugar and half the water and leave to simmer while stirring from time to time.
3. When you need more liquid, add the remaining water. Cooking time is approximately half an hour. The fruit must be caramelized and thick.

The cake

1. We put the butter in the freezer half an hour before starting to handle it.
2. In a wide and open bowl , we will place the flour with the almonds, the sugar and the salt and we will add the frozen butter cut into cubes.
3. With the help of a fork or a mortar we mix all the ingredients.
4. We beat the eggs separately and then added them to the previous mixture and integrated little by little.
5. We already have the dough ready, and that is when we wrap it in transparent film and put it in the refrigerator for 1 hour or 1.30 hours so that when it is time to roll it out it is very cold again.
6. We take the dough out of the refrigerator and divide it into two parts. One of them will be to cover the cake, and the other to form the base. The first we return to the refrigerator to keep it cold.
7. We place on the work surface a sheet of transparent film paper and on it the dough that we are going to stretch. We cover it with another sheet and in this way we shape it to make a circle about 5mm thick.
8. We take the dough formed on a ceramic mold like Emile Henry's (greased with oil) so that we cover the base and sides.
9. We put the mold with the dough back in the fridge for about 10/15 min.
10. Fill with the cream that we have reserved and on it the jam.
11. We extend the dough that we had reserved to cover the cake, in the same way that we did with the base, and place it on top, sealing the sides with our fingers.
12. To finish we brush with egg.
13. We can draw some lines first in one direction and then in another with the help of a sharp knife . They are very characteristic of this cake.
14. Finally we put it in the preheated oven at 180º about 40 min. Let it cool and serve directly from the mold either warm or cold.

Damascus steel knife Le Creuset and French De Buyer mineral ironware .

Tips

• If at any time the dough sticks to our hands excessively, the solution is to put it in the fridge, or even in the freezer, for a moment.
• The lines are easier to trace if the cake is placed in the fridge for a few minutes. While we draw them, and it depends on how hot it is in the room, we can refrigerate it several times; a couple of minutes in the freezer is enough.
• If we clean the knife with kitchen paper every time we draw a line, it will be easier for us not to drag the dough and the lines will be better drawn.
• To work the dough it is easier if we do it by placing it between two sheets of transparent film, so it does not stick to the roller and it is transferred to the mold with great ease.