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Dessert

White Cake

A light white cake with a fig and sugar filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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White Cake

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 ↓

White Cake

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 cake

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar until smooth and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then fold into the mixture.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites and vanilla.

  5. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Make the fig filling

  1. For the filling, boil the sugar and water until it reaches a hair's breadth consistency.

  2. Beat the syrup with the egg white until smooth and thick.

  3. Stir in the chopped figs and spread the filling on 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb and rich flavour.
Egg whites
Beaten whites add air and structure, helping the cake rise and hold its shape.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so the cake rises.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar and water to a hair's breadth consistency. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration before it is beaten with the egg white. Undercooked syrup gives a runny filling, while overcooked syrup turns hard and grainy when it cools.

Swap the fig

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

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

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