[4][5] The fig cake is not a literal cake made as a pastry with a dough batter, but rather a thick and often hardened paste of dried and pressed figs made into a loaf, sold by weight and eaten as a snack or dessert food in Mediterranean countries and throughout the Near East.

(1 Samuel 30:12)[7]Moreover, they that were nigh unto them... brought bread on donkeys and on camels and on mules and on oxen, even food made from flour, [and] cakes of figs (דבלים‎), and bunches of raisins, and wine, etc.

(1 Chronicles 12:40)[8]As early as the 1st-century CE, dried and pressed fig cakes were being delivered to a place called Beit Qarnayim.

[11] The fig tree native to Syria (which in Roman times included Palestine's Judaea ), with its superb qualities, was eventually introduced into Italy, as attested by Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE).

[18][19] Another manner of preparation was to take figs that had already been dried and to open them up and put one on top of the other, producing cakes known as keziah (קציעה‎).

The Arabic speaking population in the Hebron area often prepared dried figs (quṭṭēn = قطين‎) by laying them out to dry upon a large stone slab that had been covered with crushed leaves and stems of thyme-leaved savory (Micromeria fruticosa) for flavoring.

[22] In some places, anise (Pimpinella anisum) (Arabic: yānsūn) is sprinkled on the dried figs (quṭṭēn) to refine the taste.

[27] In late Roman times, dried figs were packed in sealed earthenware jars for prolonged storage.

[28] Dioscorides mentions that, in his day, dried figs were packed together with the leaves of the female sort of phlomos (Greek: φλόμος), possibly a species of mullein (Verbascum spp.

[33] In Modern times , the varieties of figs grown for eating and drying, mostly by Palestinian Fellahin, are such types known in Arabic as Moazi (Mwazi), which is also known as Hurtemani.

[34] Other varieties used for eating and drying include the Hedari fig (also spelt Khdari), the Sbai, and the Shatawi.