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Dessert

Prune or Fig Canapes

A fruit spread of prunes or figs served on sautéed bread with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Prune or Fig Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the fruit in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Cook the fruit in a little hot water until tender.

  3. Cut the figs into quarters and remove the stones from the prunes.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the fruit with sugar and ½ cup of water, using 1 tablespoon of sugar for 1 cup of fruit.

  2. When the sugar and water are mostly absorbed, add 2 tablespoons of sherry wine and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Place the mixture on sautéed squares or rounds of bread and cover with whipped cream.

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 + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fig + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes or figs
Softens as it cooks, becoming tender and sweet enough to spread on bread.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and adds body to the stewing liquid.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a rich, slightly tangy depth to the stewed fruit.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and a light, creamy texture over the warm fruit.

The step that matters

Stewing until the liquid is mostly absorbed before adding sherry. If the fruit is left to stew too long, it can dry out or scorch on the bottom of the pan. Adding the sherry once most of the liquid is absorbed lets its aroma stay in the fruit, while the short final cook drives off some of the alcohol.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, wine, bread, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, wine, bread, cream. 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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