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 ↓
Apkicot Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots
Remove the stones from the apricots.
Boil the apricots in a syrup of ¾ lb. sugar and ½ pint of water until they form a thin marmalade.
Rub the mixture through a sieve.
Make the cream
Boil the milk with the remaining ¾ lb. of sugar.
Let the milk cool slightly.
Mix in the beaten egg yolks.
Place the mixture in a jug and set it in boiling water.
Stir continuously until it thickens, but do not let it boil.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Add the isinglass, previously boiled with a small amount of water.
Stir until nearly cold.
Combine and set
Mix the cream with the apricot marmalade and stir well.
Pour into an oiled mold and refrigerate or place in a cool area until set.
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 + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 fruit flavour and the body of the marmalade that gives the cream its colour and taste.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard base and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and helps form the syrup that softens the apricots.
- Isinglass
- Gelatine-like setting agent that firms the cream so it holds its shape when chilled.
The step that matters
Thickening the custard without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they get too hot, so the mixture must be stirred gently over hot water until it thickens rather than being allowed to boil.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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