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Fig Paste Straws

Fig paste straws are stiff fig paste coated with a sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fig Paste Straws

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 330°F (165°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fig paste

  1. Warm 6 lbs of fig paste over a steam bath, then mix in enough sugar to make it quite stiff.

  2. Set aside.

Make the sugar jacket

  1. In a pot, combine 9 lbs of sugar, 2 quarts of water, and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar.

  2. Cook until it reaches 330°F (165°C).

  3. Pour the mixture onto a slab.

  4. Color and flavor it to your liking.

  5. Pull the mixture on a hook to form a flat piece for the jacket around the fig paste.

Shape and cut

  1. Cut the formed mixture into 4-inch lengths using a caramel marker.

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

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

  2. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  3. Fig + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together523 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Fig paste
Provides the chewy, sweet filling that forms the centre of each straw.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when cooked, sets into the glossy jacket around it.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the sugar syrup, helping prevent crystallisation for a smoother, clearer jacket.

The step that matters

Cook the sugar to 330°F (165°C). Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set firm but still be pliable enough to pull. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and will not hold its shape; overcooked syrup turns brittle and hard to work.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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