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Dessert

Apricot Cream

A chilled dessert made from bitter almonds, apricot jam, isinglass, heavy cream, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and apricot 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the bitter almonds in a mortar.

  2. Pass the apricot jam through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  3. Dissolve the isinglass in water as directed for Lemon Cream.

Make the cream

  1. Mix the almonds and jam together.

  2. Whisk the heavy cream until frothy.

  3. Gently stir the whipped cream into the jam mixture.

  4. If not sweet enough, add powdered sugar to taste.

  5. Mix in the dissolved isinglass while it's still warm.

  6. When it begins to set, pour it into a mold.

  7. It will be ready to unmold in one hour.

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. Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  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

Heavy cream
Whipped to air, it gives the dessert a light, creamy texture.
Isinglass
Gelatine-like setting agent that firms the cream so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Apricot jam
Provides the main fruit flavour, sweetness and body to the cream.
Bitter almonds
Adds a strong, aromatic almond flavour to the cream.

The step that matters

Mixing in the whipped cream and isinglass. Isinglass sets as it cools, so it must be added while still warm and liquid, and the cream folded in gently. If the gelatine cools too far it clumps and the mixture won't blend evenly; over-stirring deflates the whipped cream and leaves the dessert dense.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, 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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