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Dessert

Fig Fillixg

A layered white cake with figs, boiled icing, and optional nuts, dates, raisins, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and dates work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Fig Fillixg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a boiled icing.

Assemble the cake

  1. Spread layers of white cake.

  2. Add a layer of coarsely cut figs on top.

  3. Cover with more icing.

  4. Assemble the cake and cover it with plain icing.

  5. Optionally, chop nuts, dates, or raisins with the figs and add lemon juice.

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. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Dates + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the fruit filling and sweetness between the cake layers.
Boiled icing
Adds moisture and sweetness between the layers and binds the cake together.
White cake
Forms the structure and soft crumb of the layers.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, nuts, dates, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, nuts, dates, raisin. 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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