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Dessert

Apricot Pudding, Baked

A baked dessert of apricots, wine, kernels, sugar, sponge cake, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and white wine work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Apricot Pudding, Baked

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

  1. In a saucepan, combine apricots and white wine; simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in pounded apricot kernels and sugar.

Bake

  1. Beat the mixture with a fork, then add crumbled sponge cakes, milk, and beaten eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well‑oiled mold and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold; if cold, turn out into a glass dish and pour custard around it.

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 + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  3. White wine + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together929 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as it bakes.
Sponge cakes
Provide the bulk and soft crumb that the custard soaks into and holds together.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, forming a custard with the eggs.
Apricots
Supply the main fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apricots.

The step that matters

Simmer the apricots gently. Gentle simmering softens the fruit and concentrates its flavour without breaking it down into a purée, so the pudding keeps texture and body. Vigorous boiling can toughen or scorch the fruit.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, 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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