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Dessert

Fig Paste

A sweet, thick paste made from sugar, glucose, starch, water, citric acid, and lemon extract, rolled in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fig Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Dissolve the starch in cold water.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly, stirring until it reaches hard ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat and add citric acid solution and lemon extract to taste.

  4. Ensure the mixture is the consistency of fig paste before pouring.

Set and finish

  1. Pour onto a starch board dusted with starch and let set for 2-3 days.

  2. Cut into squares and roll in XXXX sugar.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the solid body once cooked and set.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the paste smooth and tender rather than grainy.
Lump starch
Thickens the cooked mixture so it can set into a firm, sliceable paste.
Citric acid solution
Adds tartness that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking to hard ball stage. Cooking slowly and stirring evenly keeps sugar from scorching or crystallizing. Reaching the correct sugar concentration determines whether the paste sets firm enough to cut and hold its shape.

“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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