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Dessert

Stuffed Figs with Whipped Cream

A dessert of figs filled with chopped nuts, simmered in boiling water, sweetened, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed Figs with Whipped Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Roll figs until pliable.

  2. Make an incision in one side and fill with 2 teaspoons of chopped nuts; fasten with thread.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover with boiling water and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the threads.

  3. Sweeten to taste.

  4. Serve with whipped 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Form the main body of the dish and, once cooked, give it a soft, tender texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour contrasting with the soft fig.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a cool, light fat to balance the warm, sweet figs.

The step that matters

Fasten with thread. Stuffed figs can split or spill filling if the incision is too large or the thread is loose. Securing the fig keeps the nuts inside while the fruit softens and releases moisture during cooking.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, sugar, 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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