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A baked cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, figs, a sugar syrup and whipped egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter.

  3. Gradually add the sugar.

  4. Mix in the beaten egg.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder.

  6. Add the sifted mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk.

  7. Pour the batter into a shallow pan or muffin tins.

  8. Bake for 30 minutes.

Make the fig frosting

  1. Boil the granulated sugar, water, and vinegar until it threads when dropped from a spoon.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Pour the syrup over them in a fine stream while beating until smooth.

  4. Prepare the figs by cutting them finely.

  5. Boil the figs in a scant ½ cup of water until tender.

  6. Once cool, mix the figs into the frosting.

Assemble

  1. Spread the frosting between the cakes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with sugar.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and adds structure and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness to give the frosting a light, airy texture.
Figs
Add fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavor to the frosting.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured in a fine stream while beating, so it cooks the whites gently and the frosting becomes smooth and glossy rather than grainy or deflated.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, vinegar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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