Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Candy

A candied fig confection made by boiling sugar and water, adding butter, and pouring into pans lined with fig slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and fig are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,042 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fig Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Test by dropping a little syrup into cold water; if it hardens, it is done.

  4. If desired, add a few drops of vinegar.

  5. Stir in the lump of butter.

Set the candy

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pans lined with slices of figs, adding more slices on top.

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. Butter + figtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves and cooks into a syrup that sets firm and glassy as it cools.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer, smoother bite to the candy.
Figs
Provide fruity sweetness and form the visible layer on the candy.

The step that matters

Testing the syrup in cold water. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar, so the candy sets hard as it cools. Testing in cold water shows when enough water has gone. Stopping too early leaves the candy sticky, while going too far makes it brittle.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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.

You might also like

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