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Puree of Apricots

A chilled apricot puree made with canned apricots, egg yolks, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Puree of Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crush the apricots to a smooth pulp.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar to a light batter.

  3. Stir in the cream and crushed apricots.

Cook and strain

  1. Place the mixture in a double boiler.

  2. Cook and stir carefully until it begins to thicken.

  3. Pour through a fine strainer.

Chill and freeze

  1. Beat until cold and the consistency of cake batter.

  2. Freeze the mixture.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apricot + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots
Provide the main fruit flavor and the body of the puree.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture when gently heated and add richness.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the puree and keeps the frozen texture softer.

The step that matters

Cook and stir carefully until it begins to thicken. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the double boiler gets too hot or stirring stops, the yolks can curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy texture.

Swap the apricot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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