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Dessert

Tutti-frutti Cream Candy

A candied mixture of figs, nuts, coconut, and sugar boiled into a sweet confection.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and fig share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Tutti-frutti Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a saucepan and boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Add coconut and boil for an additional 5 minutes.

Add fruit and nuts

  1. Remove from heat and stir in chopped figs and mixed nuts.

  2. Optionally, mix raisins with the figs.

Shape and cool

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper or into fancy molds, or pour into shallow pans.

  2. Cut into squares while cooling.

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. Coconut + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  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

White sugar
Forms the sweet, crystallised candy base as the syrup cooks and sets.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth rather than grainy.
Coconut
Adds chewy texture and flavour to the syrup as it boils.
Figs
Add body, sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the candy.
Mixed nut meats
Add crunch and contrast to the soft, chewy candy.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar syrup. Boiling the sugar, water and vinegar for the stated time concentrates the syrup so the candy sets firm. Under-boiling leaves it soft and sticky, while the vinegar helps prevent sugar from recrystallising into a grainy texture.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, fig, meat, 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.

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