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Dessert

Fig Butter. No. 1

A spread made from dried figs, rye nuts, and whipped or sterilized cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and rye share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Fig Butter. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Wash the dried figs and dry them.

  2. Cut the figs into small pieces.

Make the butter

  1. Grind the figs using a nut grinder.

  2. Mix the ground figs with one‑fourth the quantity of rye nuts.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream or sterilized 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 + ryetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11 recipes

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

  2. Rye + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Fig + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

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

  4. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Rye + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Provide the main body, sweetness and fruity flavor of the butter.
Rye nuts
Add nutty flavor and a firmer, grainy texture to the ground figs.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, nuts, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, nuts, cream. 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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