Skip to main content
Dessert

A Very Nice Preserve of Apricots

A preserve made from apricots, sugar, and apricot kernels, simmered and served with brandy paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Very Nice Preserve of Apricots

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the apricots as thin as possible.

  2. Lay the apricot halves on dishes, hollow side up.

  3. Strew the sugar evenly over the apricots.

  4. Break the apricot stones.

  5. Blanch the apricot kernels.

Cook the preserve

  1. After 12 hours, combine the apricots, sugar, and juice in a preserving pan.

  2. Simmer gently until clear.

  3. Remove the apricot pieces one by one.

Pot and cover

  1. Place the apricots in small pots.

  2. Pour the syrup and kernels over them.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises.

  4. Cover with brandy paper.

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 + 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

Apricots
Provide the fruit, body and natural pectin that help the preserve set.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out moisture, helping the preserve keep and set.
Apricot kernels
Add a light almond-like aroma and flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until clear. Gentle heat keeps the apricot pieces intact and lets the sugar dissolve and concentrate slowly. Vigorous boiling can break the fruit apart and darken or caramelise the syrup.

“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.

You might also like

Apricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesMixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes