Why it works: Apricot and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Apricot Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fruit
Steep the apricots in ½ pint of water for 1-2 hours.
Place the apricots in a saucepan with the steeping water, lemon rind, and lemon juice; cook until the fruit is soft.
Pour the cooked fruit into a pie dish.
Make the custard
Boil the milk, then blend in the cornflour; stir continuously until thickened.
Remove from heat and let cool; sweeten to taste, then stir in the egg yolk gradually.
Separate the egg, placing the white in a plate; add a little salt and beat until stiff.
Just before adding the mixture to the fruit, gently fold in the egg white without beating.
Bake
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15-20 minutes.
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.
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Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together826 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,098 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 flavour and, when cooked soft, the body of the pudding.
- Egg
- Yolk enriches and thickens the custard; whites beaten stiff and folded in add lightness.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth custard when boiled and stirred.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and softness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the fruit.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg white. Beaten egg white is a foam full of trapped air that gives lightness. Beating it again after it is added to the custard knocks out that air, so the pudding rises less and turns dense.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Figfits better
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, milk, egg. 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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