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Apricot Water

A bitter almond apricot drink made with apricot jam, syrup, lemon juice, powdered sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine apricot jam and syrup in a bowl.

  2. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and add to the mixture.

  3. Add the pounded bitter almonds and powdered sugar to achieve a bitter taste.

  4. Fill the rest with water to make it palatable.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve before serving.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apricot jam
Provides fruit flavour and body, giving the drink its apricot character and sweetness.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the drink and balances its sweetness.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinct bitter, almond-like aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the pounded bitter almonds and powdered sugar. Bitter almonds contain compounds that can taste harsh in strong amounts, so adding them gradually and tasting as you go keeps the flavour balanced rather than overpowering.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, syrup, 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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