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Dessert

Fig Filling, No. 1

A sweet filling made from boiled figs mixed with a stiffened egg white and sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,241 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Filling, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash and chop the figs finely.

  2. Barely cover the chopped figs with water and boil until they form a soft paste.

Finish and use

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the icing made by beating the egg whites with sugar until stiff.

  2. Use as a filling for layer cake.

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 + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Fig + eggtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main flavor and, once cooked down, the thick paste that forms the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, beaten with egg whites, creates the stiff icing.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar into a stiff foam that lightens the filling and gives it body.

The step that matters

Boiling the figs to a soft paste. Boiling with only enough water to barely cover the figs lets them break down and thicken into a paste. Too much water leaves a loose filling, and too little can scorch before the figs soften.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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