Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apricot Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fruit
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Halve the apricots and remove the stones.
Place the apricots in a pie dish, with a small cup or jar upside down in the center.
Sweeten the apricots with moist sugar, but do not add water.
Assemble and bake
Line the edge of the dish with pastry.
Cover the pastry with a lid.
Decorate as desired.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size.
If using puff pastry, glaze it 10 minutes before the tart is done.
Return the tart to the oven to set the glaze.
For short crust, sprinkle a little sifted sugar on top before serving.
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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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 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
- Apricots
- Provide the main fruit filling, which softens and releases juice as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps it caramelise slightly at the edges.
- Puff pastry or short crust
- Forms the edge and lid that enclose the fruit while it bakes.
The step that matters
Sweeten without adding water. Apricots release their own juice as they heat. Adding water would thin the filling and can make the pastry soggy, so moist sugar alone is used.
“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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