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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with fig filling and white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, baking soda dissolved in milk, cream of tartar, and flour, and mix well.

Bake the layers

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

Make the fig filling

  1. For the fig filling, chop the figs finely and cook in a double boiler with enough water to achieve a spreadable consistency for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat, then stir in the beaten egg and sugar.

  3. Allow to cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the fig filling between the cake layers and frost with white frosting.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake layers together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and their proteins help set the batter as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to release gas, helping the layers rise.
Figs
Provide sweetness, moisture and the flavour and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten egg and sugar into the filling off the heat. Egg proteins set when hot, so removing the filling from heat before stirring in the egg helps prevent it from scrambling or turning lumpy. Cooling then lets the filling thicken to a spreadable texture.

Swap the fig

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

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

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