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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with a white batter and a gold batter, topped with sliced figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 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.

Make the white batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter, then add the sweet milk and flour.

  3. Fold in the egg whites.

Make the gold batter

  1. For the gold part, cream together 1 cup sugar and ¾ cup butter.

  2. Mix in ½ cup sweet milk, 1½ teaspoons baking powder, and the beaten egg yolks and whole egg.

  3. Add allspice and cinnamon to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour half of the gold batter into a pie tin.

  2. Layer the halved figs on top so they just touch each other.

  3. Pour the remaining gold batter over the figs.

  4. Bake until done.

Finish

  1. Layer the white and gold cakes with frosting while warm.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Eggs
Egg whites add structure and lift to the white batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb to both batters.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Figs
Add moisture and sweetness to the gold layer as they bake into it.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites, which gives the batter its lift. Stirring hard would knock that air out and leave a denser cake.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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

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