Name: Fig Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ½ cup butter; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 eggs; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 ¼ cups flour; 8 figs, chopped fine

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten eggs, sweet milk, and sifted flour mixed with baking powder.
Take out one-third of the batter and stir in the chopped figs.

Bake and assemble

Bake in three layers: one with figs and two plain.
Assemble the layers with boiled frosting, placing the fig layer in the middle.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,026 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,192 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter: Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its shape when baked.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Flour: Forms the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Figs: Add moisture, natural sweetness and fruity flavour to the fig layer.