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Dessert

Fig Cream Ice

A chilled dessert made with figs, milk, cream, eggs, sugar, cornflour, gelatin, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and milk 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 Cream Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little water until soft.

  2. Boil the milk, then add the cornflour mixed smooth in a little cold milk. Stir until boiling, then cool slightly.

  3. Add the eggs whipped with the sugar, then the gelatin, and stir until dissolved.

Freeze with the figs

  1. When cool, add the cream and lemon juice; freeze slightly, then add the figs and continue freezing.

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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Fig + lemontop 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. Fig + sugartop 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

Eggs
Whipped with sugar, they enrich the base and add body to the custard.
Cornflour
Thickens the boiled milk so the base holds its body when cooled.
Gelatine
Sets the base gently so the ice cream keeps a smoother texture.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream richer and softer on the palate.
Dried figs
Provide the main flavour and chewy pieces through the frozen base.

The step that matters

Freeze slightly before adding the figs. Adding figs to a base that is still liquid lets them sink and cluster. Freezing until partly set suspends the pieces evenly through the ice cream.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, egg, sugar, milk, 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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