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Dessert

Apricot Pie

A pie filled with apricots cooked in their soaking water, sweetened with sugar, topped with flour, butter dots, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Pie

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 filling

  1. Wash the apricots.

  2. Soak them overnight in water.

  3. Cook the apricots in the soaking water until soft.

  4. Add sugar to the apricots and cook for a few more minutes.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a deep pie plate with crust.

  2. Place the apricots evenly.

  3. Pour the juice over them.

  4. Sprinkle with flour.

  5. Add dots of butter.

  6. Add a pinch of nutmeg if desired.

  7. Cover with a rich top crust.

  8. Brush with milk.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apricot + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Dried apricots
Provide the main fruit flavor and body of the filling once softened by cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the cooked apricots.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juice so the filling holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the filling.

The step that matters

Let the apricot filling cool before assembling the pie. Hot filling softens the raw bottom crust and can make it soggy, and the flour needs time to thicken the juice properly.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, flour, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

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