What to do with a bushel of figs?

I am the deliriously happy recipient of a shopping bag full of perfectly ripe figs, and as soon as I saw it come through the door my mind started to tick over the possibilities. What to do with all those lovely little globular delights? Other than devour them greedily, while refusing to share them? 

As appealing as this option is to begin with, one must acknowledge the, ahem, moving nature of too many figs in one go, and it is sensible to space out your figular consumption. 

My next thought was a marscapone tart or goats cheese cake (yuuuum), but I didn't have the ingredients on hand and was too lazy to go and get them. 

So, a cake it had to be.

I have seven bazillion cookbooks, but not one of them had a decent looking fig cake recipe, so I turned to the internet. This one seemed to fit the bill (i.e. I scanned the ingredients list and found that I had everything) and I plunged in without really reading the recipe. I know, a rookie mistake. If there's one thing every cook should have tattooed on the back of their hand it is 'THOU SHALT READ THE RECIPE THOROUGHLY BEFORE THOU PICKEST UP THINE WOODEN SPOON'. 

I launched in quite happily and everything was going well up until I hit this part;

Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Put the sugar and lemon zest in a bowl and rub them together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the butter. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Pour in the remaining 1/2 cup honey, add the vanilla extract and beat for another 2 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated.

  

I misread this paragraph (because I bring to cooking the same slapdash halfarsedness I bring to everything in my life). I do think instructions should be laid out a bit more clearly than that, but I can't blame someone else for my laziness. Anyway, I did everything in the wrong order and mixed the poached figs into the cake instead of scattering them over the top. This made it all much goopier, and I had to compensate by adding extra flour to the mix, and I think that contributed to the cake being a bit too doughy, but overall it came out well enough. The cake itself is not too sweet, and the figs are lovely and gooey. It makes quite a lot of syrup, but I imagine it would be really nice on ice cream as well.

Here's the recipe, as it ended up under my attempt;

What goes in

For the poached figs

3/4 cup port or sweet wine

2 slices of lemon (cross ways)

1 cup honey

10-15 fresh figs, quartered

For the cake

1 1/2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup cornmeal/fine polenta

170g butter, cubed

3 eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Zest of half a lemon

Dash of cinnamon

Pinch of salt

What you do with all that stuff

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 24cm round cake tin or similar

Make the poached figs first. Put the port, honey and lemon in a saucepan* and bring to the boil. 

Lower the heat, add the figs and simmer gently for five minutes, until the figs are just starting to get a bit pulpy. 

Remove the figs from the syrup with a slotted spoon and set aside. 

Simmer the remaining syrup until it has reduced and gone thick.

Next, make the cake.

Sift the dry ingredients together

Add the butter, rub in until the mix resembles breadcrumbs

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well each time

Add the honey (oops, I forgot this when I made it, worked out well without it though)

Pour the batter into the cake tin, and spread the figs over the top - they should sort of sink into the batter a bit as the cake cooks

Bake for 45 minutes, until a clean skewer doesn't come out dirty

Leave to cool for ten minutes or so, then carefully turn out onto a cooling rack

Serve with the syrup and cream or ice cream. 

The, when everyone has had some cake and left the table and you think no one's looking, cram a big slice in your mouth. Someone will be looking, of course, and you'll die a little inside because they've seen you dribbling crumbs, but it will be worth it. 

* You could just give up at this stage and drink the port instead of buggering about in the kitchen. I wouldn't judge you for it.