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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake made with figs, sugar, butter, flour, and egg whites, finished with a sugared icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Mix and sift the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the milk.

  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and make the icing

  1. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Boil the sugar and water until it ropes.

  3. Beat the egg whites.

  4. Pour the syrup over them and beat until thick enough to spread.

Fill and ice

  1. Reserve some icing for the top and sides of the cake.

  2. Add the chopped figs to the remaining icing and mix well.

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. Vanilla + figtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to add lift and structure to the batter and to form the fluffy icing.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Cornstarch
Softens the flour's gluten, producing a finer, more tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled to a syrup, forms the base of the icing.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup over the egg whites. The boiled sugar syrup must be hot but not scorched and poured in a thin stream while beating, so it cooks the whites into a stable, spreadable meringue-like icing. Pouring too fast or too cold can leave it runny or grainy.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

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