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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake made with figs, currants, flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking powder, and a plain almond‑flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 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 ↓

Fig Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Combine half a cup butter, one cup granulated sugar, half a cup milk, two cups flour, two rounded teaspoonfuls baking powder, and the whites of four eggs.

  2. Beat the butter and sugar to a cream.

  3. Stir the milk and one cup of the flour together and add to the butter and sugar.

  4. Sift the remaining cup of flour and the baking powder together.

  5. Beat the whites of eggs to a stiff froth.

  6. Stir alternately with the flour into the other ingredients.

  7. Grease three layer cake tins well.

  8. Divide the batter evenly and bake from seven to ten minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Boil one cup sugar wet with a little water until clear, without stirring.

  2. Remove from heat and stir into it three‑quarters cup figs chopped fine and a quarter cup currants, washed and dried.

Assemble and ice

  1. Spread two of the layers with this filling.

  2. Put the layers together.

  3. Beat the whites of two eggs to a froth.

  4. Stir in one and a half cups powdered sugar and flavor with almond extract.

  5. Ice top and sides with the icing.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

932Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
146 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Fig1 medium (50g)37
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Whites are beaten to a froth, which lightens the batter and gives the cake its rise and structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the layers rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Figs
Chopped fine and cooked into the filling, they add moisture and sweetness.
Sugar
Creams with butter for texture and, when boiled, forms the sweet base of the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar for the filling. Boiling sugar without stirring keeps it from crystallising, so the syrup turns clear and smooth rather than grainy. Stirring encourages crystals to form.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, milk, fig, egg. 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.

More fig cake recipes

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