Name: Apricots, Charlotte Op
Ingredients: 24 apricots; ½ cup fine sugar; 2 ounces warm butter; apricot marmalade for serving

Why it works: Apricot and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,458 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apricots, Charlotte Op

Ingredients

24 apricots
½ cup fine sugar
2 ounces warm butter
apricot marmalade for serving

Directions

Choose 24 fine, plump apricots that are not too ripe.
Pare and divide the apricots into eight parts.
Toss the apricots with ½ cup of fine sugar and 2 ounces of warm butter.
Line a mold as directed in the recipe.
Pour the apricots into the mold and finish as usual.
When turned out onto a dish, cover lightly with apricot marmalade and serve immediately.

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.

Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,458 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

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