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Apricot Water Ice

A frozen beverage made with apricot jam, lemon juice, water, bitter almonds, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apricot Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine apricot jam and lemon juice in a bowl.

  2. Add water and pounded bitter almonds.

  3. Sweeten with sugar to taste.

Strain and freeze

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Freeze until rich and thick.

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. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricot jam
Provides fruit flavor and much of the sweetness, along with body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apricot flavor and balances sweetness.
Water
Forms the ice crystals that give the water ice its frozen texture.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinctive almond aroma and a bitter, nutty flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer.

The step that matters

Sweeten to taste before freezing. Cold dulls our perception of sweetness, so a mixture that tastes right at room temperature can taste bland once frozen. Sugar also lowers the freezing point and softens the ice, so the balance should be set before the mixture goes into the freezer.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, almond, sugar. 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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