Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Tart

A baked tart of figs stewed with milk, sugar, cinnamon, and butter, topped on pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fig and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 614 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. The science ↓

Fig Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the figs into small slices using scissors.

  2. Add enough milk to cover the figs.

  3. Add sugar and cinnamon.

  4. Stew the mixture in an earthenware jar, covered, in the oven until it boils.

  5. Remove the jar from the oven.

  6. Stir in the butter.

Assemble the tart

  1. When cool, line a flat dish with pastry.

  2. Spread a thick layer of the fig mixture on top, heaping it in the center.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main body and sweet fruit flavor of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the cooked fig mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the figs take on a jam-like consistency.
Milk
Provides liquid that softens the figs as they stew.

The step that matters

Stew the mixture until it boils. The figs must be cooked until the mixture boils so they soften and thicken into a spreadable filling. Stewing covered in an earthenware jar keeps moisture in, so the milk and figs cook gently without drying out.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes