Why it works: Fig and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,192 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Gold and Silver 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.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Bake the silver cake in 2 long pie tins.
Half fill a long pie tin with the gold cake batter.
Lay the split figs close together on the batter and dust with flour.
Cover the figs with more batter until the tin is nearly full.
Bake until done.
Assemble the layers with frosting, placing gold cake between silver layers, and frost the top.
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.
-
Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,192 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
More fig cake recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.