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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, egg whites, flour, baking soda, milk, figs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar or baking powder.

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

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Make the fig filling

  1. For the fig filling, chop the figs into a paste.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the figs, water, and powdered sugar.

  3. Set the dish in a larger pot of water and boil until thickened.

  4. Once cool, stir in the vanilla and spread over the cooled cake.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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 add richness and tender texture to the crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the cake rise and set as the batter bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Figs
Provide the sweet, fruity flavor and moist, thick texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the fig filling. Figs must cook long enough to thicken into a spreadable paste. If undercooked, the filling stays runny and soaks into the cooled cake; cooling before spreading lets it set firm.

Swap the fig

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

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

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