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Dessert

Fruit Paste

A spreadable paste made from dates, figs, and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Fruit Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the dates and figs in hot water and drain them.

  2. Remove the seeds from the dates.

  3. Boil the seeds in a little water, then remove them.

Make the paste

  1. Mash the dates and figs with a fork.

  2. Add the water from the boiled seeds to the paste.

  3. Add orange juice until the paste is spreadable.

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. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Fig + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  3. Dates + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide sweetness and a thick, sticky body that holds the paste together.
Figs
Add sweetness, soft texture and moisture that helps the fruit mash into a paste.
Oranges
Add moisture and acidity that loosens the paste to a spreadable consistency.

The step that matters

Add orange juice until the paste is spreadable. Dried fruit pastes thicken as they cool and sugars concentrate. Adding juice gradually lets you control moisture so the paste spreads without becoming runny.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, fig):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, fig. 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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