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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet baked cake made with figs, raisins, sugar, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fig Cake

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the cold water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and eggs.

  5. Fold in the figs, ensuring they are well covered with the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into layers in cake pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Frost between each layer and cut with a sharp knife to prevent crumbling.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Nutmeg + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the cake structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and flavour to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Figs
Add moisture and fruity sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Cutting the cake. Cutting with a sharp knife, as the step advises, helps prevent crumbling. A dull blade drags and tears the soft layers, while a sharp one slices cleanly through the crumb.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figthe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, 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.

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