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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with a light batter and a dark fig and raisin batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add corn starch, flour, egg whites, baking powder, and lemon extract. Mix until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, combine sugar, flour, butter, cold water, baking soda dissolved in hot water, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and egg or yolks.

  4. Fold in the finely chopped figs into the dark mixture.

Bake

  1. Grease jelly tins and pour in the light batter, followed by the dark batter, alternating layers.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks add structure and richness to the crumb as they set.
Butter
Creaming butter with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
All-purpose flour
Flour forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Figs
Chopped figs add moisture and natural sweetness to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the finely chopped figs into the dark mixture.. Folding gently keeps the batter airy and prevents the figs from sinking or overmixing, which would toughen the cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, corn, flour, egg, raisin, cinnamon. 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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