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Dessert

Fig Frappe

A chilled dessert made by folding sliced figs into whipped cream and freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 Frappe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and slice the figs finely.

  2. Sweeten the figs to your taste.

Make and freeze

  1. Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form.

  2. Fold the figs into the whipped cream.

  3. Pack the mixture into a freezer container without stirring.

  4. Freeze for about 1½ hours before serving.

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. Cream + sugartop 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

Figs
Add fruity flavour, natural sweetness and soft texture to the frozen mixture.
Heavy cream
Whipped to soft peaks, it traps air and gives the frappe a light, creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the figs.

The step that matters

Folding the figs into the whipped cream. Whipped cream is full of trapped air. Stirring or beating vigorously deflates it and makes the frappe dense, so the figs should be folded in gently until just combined.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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