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Dessert

Apricot Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with apricot pulp, milk, eggs, sugar, and sherry, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apricot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Pour boiling milk over bread crumbs and let cool.

  2. Add egg yolks, sherry, almond extract, and sugar; beat thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the apricot pulp.

  4. Whisk egg whites to firm froth and fold into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour into a pie dish lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sherry + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk to form a soft base that thickens the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whisked to a firm froth, they lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Apricots
Add fruit flavour, sweetness, and moisture through the pulp.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds tenderness to the set custard.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives the pudding its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing so the pudding rises and stays light.

“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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