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Dessert

Fig Cake

A layered cake made with milk, corn starch, flour, allspice, egg whites, sugar, butter, baking powder, cinnamon, figs, and optional almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix milk, corn starch, flour, allspice or cloves, egg whites, sugar, butter, and baking powder until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter into three parts; add cinnamon and figs to one part.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour the batters into greased cake pans, alternating between white and dark layers.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

Ice and finish

  1. For the icing, beat 3 egg whites until stiff.

  2. In a saucepan, boil sugar and water for 5 minutes, then pour over the beaten egg whites and beat until cool.

  3. Spread the icing on the cooled cake layers.

  4. If desired, add the almond paste on top.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped and folded into the batter to give the cake structure and lift.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a tender texture compared with flour alone.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake layers together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Figs
Add moisture, natural sweetness and a jammy texture to the dark layer.

The step that matters

Beating the icing egg whites with boiled syrup. Pouring the hot syrup slowly into the beaten whites while beating cooks the whites into a stable, glossy meringue icing; adding it too fast or stopping early can leave it runny or grainy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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