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Dessert

Fancy Fruit Cake

A two-layer cake with figs, pink and dark batter, topped with lemon icing and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fancy Fruit 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.

Make the light batter

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

  2. Cream together ½ cup butter and 1 lb sugar.

  3. Add 3 tablespoons milk and the beaten egg whites.

  4. Mix in a little essence of lemon.

  5. Sift in 1½ cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  6. Divide the mixture in half.

  7. Color one half pink with red food coloring.

  8. Pour the light mixture into two buttered round sandwich tins.

Make the dark batter and layer

  1. For the dark part, cream the remaining butter and sugar.

  2. Add 4 beaten yolks and 2 tablespoons milk.

  3. Mix in vanilla essence, 1 cup flour, and ½ teaspoon baking powder.

  4. Color with spices or cocoa.

  5. Pour half of the dark mixture into a buttered tin.

  6. Layer with split and floured figs.

  7. Pour the rest of the mixture on top.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Once baked, place the pink layer at the bottom and spread with lemon icing.

  3. Add the dark layer on top.

  4. Spread with more lemon icing.

  5. Place the white layer on top.

  6. Level the top if necessary and spread icing over the top and sides.

  7. Decorate with halved walnuts and sprinkle desiccated coconut in between.

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. Fig + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Provides structure as its proteins and starch set during baking, giving the cake its frame.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, then adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when creamed with butter, helps hold air for a lighter texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter as it heats, making the layers rise.
Egg whites
Add moisture and structure, helping the layers set and hold their shape.
Figs
Add moisture and fruit flavour to the dark layer, sitting between the sponge layers.

The step that matters

Bake for the stated time only. The thin layers set quickly in the oven. Baking too long dries the crumb, while stopping too early leaves the centre wet and likely to sink.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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