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No. 8. Breakfast

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and fig 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 ↓

No. 8. Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the crumbs in milk while preparing the other ingredients.

  2. Mince the washed and dried figs.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and add to the soaked crumbs.

  4. Mix in the sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

  5. Fold in the minced figs coated with flour.

  6. Beat the mixture well from bottom to top.

  7. Pour into a buttered mold, cover tightly, and steam for 3 hours.

  8. Dip the mold in cold water for a second, turn out, and serve with hard sauce.

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. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, cinnamon, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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