Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake with white and gold batters, topped with figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 batters

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

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

  3. Add the milk and flour, then fold in the egg whites.

  4. In another bowl, mix the sugar, butter, sweet milk, baking powder, flour, egg yolks, whole egg, allspice, and cinnamon for the gold part.

Layer and bake

  1. Pour the white batter into two long pie tins.

  2. Pour half of the gold batter into a pie tin and layer the halved figs on top, ensuring they touch.

  3. Spread the remaining gold batter over the figs and bake until golden.

Assemble and frost

  1. Once baked, layer the cakes with frosting while warm, placing the gold layer between the white layers, and cover the top with 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

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

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

  4. Allspice + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whip-free structure that lifts and sets the white batter as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tender crumb and rich flavor in both batters.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batters rise and stay light.
Egg yolks
Add richness, color and moisture to the gold batter.
Figs
Add sweet, jammy fruit flavor and moisture within the gold layer.

The step that matters

Layering the figs in the gold batter. Figs should touch in an even layer so they bake evenly and the gold batter sets around them; uneven spacing can leave soggy or dry patches and an uneven slice.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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

More fig cake recipes

Filling 13Ribbon 4 See all 144 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes