Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Apricot Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Whip the cream and sugar to stiff peaks.
Press the apricots through a fine sieve, discarding the syrup.
Simmer the syrup in a saucepan until reduced by half.
Add the apricot pulp, reduced syrup, lemon juice, and dissolved gelatine to the whipped cream.
To decorate the mold, pour a little dissolved gelatine into it and let it coat the bottom and sides.
When the gelatine is partly set, add candied cherries, citron, angelica, or pistachio nuts as desired.
Fill the mold with the cream mixture and refrigerate until firm.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,098 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + apricottop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,116 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, apricot):
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More apricot cream recipes
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