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Apricot Cheese

A sweet preserve made from apricots and sugar, cooked until thick and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the apricots and cut them into pieces.

  2. Grease the inside of a preserving pan with fine salad oil.

Make the apricot cheese

  1. Add the apricots to the pan and boil until they become a pulp, stirring constantly.

  2. Add the sugar and continue to stir while boiling sharply until the mixture turns golden brown.

  3. Check that the mixture clings to the spoon and leaves the pan clear.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small molds and cover.

  2. Allow to cool and solidify.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 bulk and fruit flavour, breaking down into a thick pulp when boiled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the mixture cooks down, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil sharply while stirring after adding the sugar. Sugar at high heat can scorch and turn bitter before the mixture is ready. Constant stirring prevents sticking and uneven browning, and the mixture must reduce enough to hold its shape once cooled.

“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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