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Dessert

Apricot Sweet

A small cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, apricot jam, lemon juice, and topped with cherries and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Apricot Sweet

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter eight small dariole molds and dredge them with flour.

Make the cakes

  1. Beat the butter and castor sugar until soft and nearly white.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  3. Gradually stir in the vanilla and flour, then add the baking powder.

  4. Half fill the molds and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until light brown.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, combine apricot jam, water, loaf sugar, and lemon juice in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently for about 10 minutes to form a syrup, skimming off any scum.

  3. Soak the cakes with the hot syrup and do not strain it.

  4. Top each cake with half a cherry and sprinkle with coconut.

  5. Serve hot or cold.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Apricot + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Apricot + coconuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cakes a soft, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Apricot jam
Adds fruity sweetness and flavour to the syrup that soaks the cakes.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as it boils down.

The step that matters

Soak the cakes with the hot syrup. The cakes must be soaked while both cakes and syrup are hot, so the warm, porous crumb absorbs the syrup evenly and stays moist rather than soggy on top.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, apricot, flour, vanilla, coconut):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, apricot, flour, vanilla, coconut. 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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