Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Cake

A two-layered cake with a light sponge and a fig filling, baked and lightly frosted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Walnut and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 373 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fig Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of flour, ⅔ cup of sweet milk, ½ cup of butter, 4 or 5 egg whites, and 2 teaspoons of baking powder until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into two round cake tins.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the cakes until golden.

  2. Combine 1 cup of brown sugar, a walnut-sized piece of butter, 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of chopped figs, ½ cup of sweet milk, 1 egg, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder for the fig layer.

  3. Bake the fig mixture until done.

  4. Layer the fig cake between the light cakes.

  5. Frost lightly.

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. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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

Egg whites
Provide structure and lift to the light cake layers as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Figs
Supply moisture, sweetness and chewy texture to the fig layer.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the cake layers rise and become light.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake layers as it sets.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits about as well

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

Filling 13Ribbon 4 See all 144 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes