Stichelton, Fig & Walnut Savoury Cake

Savoury cake

This post was inspired by a random email from someone who bought a savoury cake from a range I produced for a Christmas Slow Food market at Southbank Centre 4 years ago. Having found my contact details, this ardent fan wanted to order a couple for the festive break. So much in love was she with the memory of that cake that I couldn't help but agree to such a small order. Quite simply because my memory of the said cake was the polar opposite and inextricably entangled with utter misery. For during that four day Christmas market, I froze in sub-zero temperatures and endured rejection and dejection; I could not give the cakes away, although the homeless of Waterloo appreciated the unsold loaves. Now that I have that off my chest and have been suitably seduced with talk of the 'cake of dreams' I baked this cake this morning with a rehabilitated view.

For this is a sumptuous mix of Christmas; Stichelton (a blue veined cheese), figs and walnuts. When you are eating this cake it eases you into an old leather chair in front of a roaring fire, with curtains drawn and a glass of full bodied red.

Stichelton is a re-make of Stilton, but uses raw milk. The reason for this reinvention followed the decision by makers of Stilton to cease to use raw milk as a reaction to health scares of a possible link to outbreaks of food poisoning with consumption of the cheese's unpasteurised milk. The cheese cognescenti mourned it's loss. And so in an attempt to recreate the more complex flavours of raw milk Stilton, Randolph Hodgson and American cheesemaker Joe Schneider went about recreating the venerable cheese on the Welbeck estate in Nottinghamshire. In late 2006 Stichelton was born.

I usually make this cake as mini muffins for canapes as, quite honestly I have had a slight aversion to ever seeing this combination as a loaf cake again. But as of today, I will be indulging in the salty, sweet, creamy complex cake as I curl up in my shabby leather fire side chair. Well, if not exactly the sentiment is very much there.

Savoury mini muffins

Stichelton, fig & walnut savoury cake

• 100ml olive oil
• 100ml white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio)
• 4 eggs
• 275 Stichelton crumbled (& yes of course you can use Stilton, if you must)
• 50gm sliced dried figs
• 50gm walnuts broken
• 180gm SR white flour
• pinch salt (careful, as Stichelton is salty)

1. Combine the olive oil, white wine and eggs and whisk well
2. Add crumbled Stichelton, nuts and figs
3. Add flour & salt and combine
4. Pile into a lined cake tin of your choice
5. Bake in preheated oven of 180C about 35-40 mins, testing to see the centre is cooked.
6. Allow to cool