Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Preserves

Preserves figs by boiling them with sugar and water until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fig and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,241 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the figs and sugar to ensure they are equal.

Make the syrup and cook the figs

  1. Combine sugar and a little water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the figs to the boiling sugar mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture.

  5. Remove the pot from heat.

  6. Spread the figs on flat plates to cool.

  7. Repeat the boiling and cooling process two or three times until the fruit is clear.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the fruit that becomes the preserve, softening and turning clear as they cook in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and draws water out of the figs, helping them keep and set.

The step that matters

Repeating the boil and cool cycle. Heating and then cooling the figs in syrup lets sugar slowly penetrate the fruit without breaking it down. Rushing this with one long boil can leave the figs mushy or cloudy instead of clear and intact.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes