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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet baked cake with a fig-infused cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently until combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the fig filling

  1. For the filling, combine 2 cups of granulated sugar and 1 cup of boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the syrup until it forms soft balls when dropped in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and let the kettle stand in cold water until a light crust forms.

  4. Beat the syrup until creamy and white.

  5. Mix in the chopped or ground figs to the cream filling.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 tender, fine crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its starch sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Beaten whites add air and help the cake rise and set with structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the syrup until creamy and white. Sugar syrup must be cooled and then beaten so tiny crystals form, which makes a smooth, creamy texture. Beating while it is too hot or too cool can leave it grainy or prevent it from thickening.

Swap the fig

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

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

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