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Dessert

Fig Sandwiches

A sandwich of fig and almond paste on ladyfingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped figs and water. Cook until it forms a smooth paste.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped almonds with rose water and lemon juice until it forms a paste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Allow the fig mixture to cool, then spread it on lady-fingers or cakelets.

  2. Top with another lady-finger or cakelet and serve on a doily-covered plate.

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 + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

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

  5. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Cook down with water into a smooth paste that gives the filling its sweetness and body.
Blanched almonds
Add nutty texture and body to the almond paste.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the figs and almonds.
Lady-fingers or cakelets
Act as the crisp, absorbent base and top that hold the filling between them.

The step that matters

Cooking the fig paste to a smooth consistency. Figs must be cooked long enough to break down into a smooth paste; undercooked pieces stay coarse and can make the filling hard to spread. Cooling before spreading lets the paste thicken so it stays in place instead of soaking into the delicate lady-fingers.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, almond, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, almond, rose. 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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