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Dessert

Fig Pie

A baked pie filled with stewed figs, butter, sugar, and a flour‑thickened filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fig Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Stew the figs in water and vinegar until soft.

  2. Add butter, sugar to taste, and a little flour to thicken.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with another crust.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Fig + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Figs
Provide the main body, sweetness and flavour of the filling as they soften.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the figs.
Flour
Starch thickens the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the vinegar and the tartness of the figs.

The step that matters

Thicken the filling with flour. Flour starch only thickens when it is heated in the liquid, so the filling must be cooked enough for the flour to swell. Stirring it into the figs evenly also prevents lumps and raw flour pockets.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Apricotfits about as well

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