Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Bars

A sweet dessert made by boiling milk, maple sugar, and figs, then setting and cutting into bars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and fig are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,026 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Fig Bars

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fig mixture

  1. Boil the milk, maple sugar, and cream of tartar slowly for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the lemon extract and chopped figs, then bring to a boil again.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

  2. Once cool, cut into bars that are 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

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. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + figtop 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

Milk
Adds liquid and dairy solids that help the sugar mixture thicken and turn creamy as it boils.
Maple sugar
Sweetens the bars and, when boiled down, sets into a firm, chewy mass as it cools.
Figs
Provide the main fruit flavor and body, softening into the mixture as it boils.
Cream of tartar
Acidity helps stabilize the sugar so the mixture sets smoothly rather than crystallizing.

The step that matters

Boil the milk, maple sugar, and cream of tartar slowly for 20 minutes. Sugar mixtures set by concentrating as water evaporates. Boiling slowly for the full time, without rushing, drives off enough moisture for the bars to firm up once cooled. Too short a boil leaves them soft and sticky.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar, fig. 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

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes