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Dessert

Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, honey, flour, milk, baking powder, raisins, figs, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and honey to the mixture.

  3. Soak the raisins and chopped figs in brandy for 30 minutes.

Mix and bake

  1. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add the soaked fruit.

  2. Mix well and then add the milk.

  3. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Honey + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Figs
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar together. Beating butter and sugar traps air in the fat, which gives the batter lift and a lighter texture once baked. Under-creaming leaves a denser cake.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, almond, sugar, honey, egg, flour, milk. 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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