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Dessert

Yellow and Brown Cakes

A layered cake of yellow batter and chocolate-flavoured brown batter, filled with figs and topped with icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and fig 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 ↓

Yellow and Brown Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Add the whole egg and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sweet milk, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg yolks.

  7. Divide the batter into two parts.

  8. To one part, add the grated chocolate, water, sugar, and vanilla; stir until smooth over low heat.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake for about 20 minutes.

  2. For the filling, mix the powdered sugar with the beaten egg whites until light.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Use the brown cake as the bottom layer, spread a thin coating of filling, and layer with figs.

  2. Add the yellow cake on top with icing and sliced oranges.

  3. Top with the egg whites, icing, and coconut.

  4. Finish with the pink layer, spread with firm white icing, and decorate with almonds and candies.

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. Vanilla + figtop 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the beaten whites lighten the filling.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Grated chocolate
Gives the brown layer its colour and a deep chocolate flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it stay smooth when whipped with egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg yolks. Folding gently keeps the air in the batter; stirring hard knocks it out, leaving a denser, flatter cake.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Figthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

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