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Dessert

Ribbon Fig Cake

A layered fig cake with white and gold batters, flavored with cinnamon and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice 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 ↓

Ribbon 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. Cream together 2 cups of sugar and ¾ cup of butter.

  3. Add ¾ cup of milk and 3 cups of flour alternately.

  4. Mix in 2 teaspoons of baking powder and the beaten egg whites.

  5. Pour the batter into two layer cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the gold batter

  1. For the gold part, cream ½ cup of butter and 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Add 7 egg yolks, 1 whole beaten egg, ½ cup of milk, and 1½ cups of flour mixed with 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

  3. Season the gold batter with cinnamon and allspice.

Layer and bake the gold cake

  1. Layer half of the gold batter in a pan.

  2. Add the halved figs.

  3. Top with the remaining gold batter.

  4. Bake the gold batter until set.

Assemble and frost

  1. Layer the gold cake between the white cakes with frosting, and cover the entire cake with frosting.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air in the white batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness, colour and tenderness to the gold batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, butter adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Flour provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the cake and helps brown it while adding tenderness.

The step that matters

Bake the gold batter until set. Underbaked gold batter stays wet and may sink or collapse under the layers, while overbaking dries the crumb. Bake until the centre feels set and a tester comes out clean.

Swap the allspice

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