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Dessert

Dark Fig Cake

A moist cake made with figs, raisins, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dark 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. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and eggs.

  5. Fold in the whole figs and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans, covering the figs well.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Layer the cakes with frosting between each layer.

  4. Use a very sharp knife to cut the cake to prevent crumbling.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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 as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Creamed with the butter, it sweetens the cake and helps it brown.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff batter its structure.
Figs
Add moisture and fruity sweetness, and hold their shape within the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the water before mixing. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly through the batter; clumps can leave bitter spots and uneven rising.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, 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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