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Dessert

Fig Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, brandy, raisins, citron, spices, figs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and eggs; mix well.

  4. Stir in the brandy or whiskey, chopped raisins, citron, and spices.

  5. Gradually add flour until the mixture is as stiff as pound cake batter.

  6. Cut the figs into thin slices and fold them into the batter.

Bake and assemble

  1. Fill layer cake tins with the batter.

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

  3. Once baked, alternate layers of this dark cake with layers of white or silver cake.

  4. Use a little icing to hold the layers together.

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

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

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Brandy + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

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 give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep flavor, and moisture to the dark cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be added gradually until the batter is as stiff as pound cake batter. Too little flour leaves a batter too loose to hold its shape and structure, while too much makes the cake dense and dry.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, brandy, fig):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, brandy, 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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