Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with a white part and a dark fig part, baked in separate tins.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter 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

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 the light batter

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

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

  3. Pour the mixture into two round cake tins and bake until golden.

Make the dark fig layer

  1. For the dark part, combine 1 cup of brown sugar, ½ cup of butter, 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of chopped figs, ½ cup of sweet milk, 1 egg, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

  2. Bake the dark mixture in a separate tin until done.

Assemble and finish

  1. Once both cakes are baked, layer the fig cake between the white cakes and frost as desired.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift as they set in the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for tender crumb and rich flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the dark layer.
Chopped figs
Add fruity sweetness and moisture to the dark layer.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

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