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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with almonds, figs, honey, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. 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

  1. Soak the chopped figs in brandy for 30 minutes.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the beaten eggs and honey to the butter mixture and mix well.

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

  4. Fold in the soaked figs and milk until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Almond + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Honey + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

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

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Figs
Add moisture, natural sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating air into the butter and sugar creates the bubbles that help the cake rise and give it a light, even crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake.

“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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