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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with figs and currants, topped with an almond-flavored egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Stir the milk and 1 cup of flour together, then add to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Sift the remaining cup of flour with the baking powder.

  5. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them alternately with the flour mixture into the batter.

Bake the layers

  1. Grease three layer cake pans and divide the batter evenly among them.

  2. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, boil 1 cup of sugar with a little water until clear, then remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the chopped figs and currants.

  3. Spread the filling between two layers of cake, stack them, and ice the top and sides with icing made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar flavored with almond extract.

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. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep its crumb soft.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the batter. Fold gently and alternately with the flour so the whipped air is not knocked out. Lost air means the layers rise less and turn out denser.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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