Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with figs, raisins, flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fig Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the chopped figs and raisins.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in layers until golden brown.

  2. Assemble with boiled icing.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 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
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the boiling water and helps the cake rise.
Figs
Add moisture, sweetness and fruity flavour to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the boiling water. Baking soda needs moisture and heat to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in the boiling water spreads the leavening evenly, so the cake rises without pockets or a bitter, soapy patch.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

More fig cake recipes

Filling 13Ribbon 4 See all 144 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes