The World That Was - Illyrian Fig Cake (smokvenjak)
Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today I’m making a simple pressed fig and almond cake - known today as Dalmatian or Croatian “smokvenjak”. Dried fruit turned into pressed cakes were a common way of storing figs, dates, and other high-sugar, low moisture goods in antiquity - like we can see with the mersu from Akkadian society. This recipe is based on early Greek descriptions of food the Illyrians ate. In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients 300g dried figs 100g almonds fresh fennel Method 1 - Prepare the Almonds To begin with, place your dried almonds into a mortar and pestle and grind them into a very fine meal. You don't need to peel or blanche the nuts for this, so just add them as-is. It should look like sand granules when you’re done. 2 - Prepare the Figs Now we need to deal with our figs. The stalk is edible, but is considerably tougher than the inside of the fig. So I’d recommend removing them