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Dessert

Ribbon Fig Cake

A layered fig cake with white and gold batter, figs, and frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

Make the white batter

  1. Cream together 2 cups of sugar and ⅔ cup of butter.

  2. Add ⅔ cup of milk and 3 cups of flour alternately with 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Bake in layers.

Make and layer the gold batter

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

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

  3. Season with cinnamon and allspice.

  4. In a pan, layer half the gold cake batter, then add halved figs and dust with flour.

  5. Top with the remaining gold cake batter and bake.

Assemble

  1. Layer the gold cake between the white cakes with frosting in between, 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 fold in air, giving the white layers lift and a light, tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and fat to the gold batter, giving it a tender texture and deeper color.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, butter adds fat and tenderness and helps trap air for a fine crumb.
Flour
Flour forms the cake's structure once mixed and baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps build a tender structure.

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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