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Dessert

Daek Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with figs, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a stiff batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Daek 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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and eggs.

  5. Add enough flour to make a stiff batter, similar to pound cake.

Layer and bake

  1. Divide the batter between two cake tins, placing a thin layer in each.

  2. Evenly distribute the figs over the batter in both tins.

  3. Cover the figs with the remaining batter.

  4. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, stack the two cakes together with icing in between.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten its crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the stiff batter and figs together.
Figs
Add moisture and fruity sweetness in the layer between the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. The figs release moisture and the batter is stiff, so underbaking leaves a gummy centre while overbaking dries the cake. A toothpick test in the centre shows when the crumb has set through.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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