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Dessert

Prune or Fig Canapes

Fruit topping served on sautéed bread squares or rounds, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Prune or Fig Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the prunes and figs in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Cook the fruit in a little hot water until tender.

  3. Cut the figs into quarters and remove the stones from the prunes.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the fruit with 1 tablespoon of sugar and ½ cup of water until mostly cooked in.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of sherry wine and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Serve on sautéed squares or rounds of bread and top with whipped cream.

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. Fig + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fig + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main fruit body and a dense, sticky texture as they soften.
Figs
Add body, soft texture and natural sweetness to the fruit mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the stewed fruit become glossy and cohesive.
Sherry wine
Adds aromatic, slightly acidic depth that brightens the sweet fruit.

The step that matters

Add the sherry and cook only briefly. Sherry's aroma is delicate and partly lost to evaporation with heat. A short simmer of 2-3 minutes softens the alcohol's harshness while keeping its fragrance and bright flavor.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, wine, cream, bread. 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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