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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with sweet milk batter, butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, figs, and a cinnamon-flavored filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 614 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. 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 white batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix ½ cup sweet milk, 8 egg whites, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 2 cups sugar, ½ cup butter, and 3 cups flour until smooth.

  3. Pour the batter into 2 long pie tins and bake until golden.

Make the gold layer

  1. For the gold part, mix ½ cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 1½ cups flour, ½ cup sweet milk, 1 teaspoon allspice, 8 egg yolks, and 1 egg white with ½ teaspoons baking powder.

  2. Layer half of the gold batter in a pie tin, place halved figs on top, then add the remaining gold batter and bake.

Make the fig filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, dissolve 1 cup sugar in water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped figs and boil for 45 minutes, ensuring it doesn't burn.

  3. Once baked, stack the cakes with frosting while warm, placing the gold layer between the white layers.

  4. Spread the fig filling between the cake layers and frost the top.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 white cake layers as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake layers rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor in the cake layers.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake layers as it sets with the eggs.
Figs
Add moisture, sweetness and body to the filling as they cook down.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling, and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.

The step that matters

Boiling the fig filling. Figs and sugar thicken as the water cooks off, and sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring and keeping the heat moderate prevents burning and gives a spreadable filling.

Swap the fig

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

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

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