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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, cornstarch, salt, egg whites, and figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into two shallow oblong pans.

  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let the cakes cool before assembling with fig filling.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tender texture to the crumb.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lift, helping the cake set and hold its airy texture.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat of the oven, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, fluffy batter.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the dry ingredients. Adding flour in portions alternating with milk keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

“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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