Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
To Make Apricot Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Pick out all the bad apricots and those that are too ripe.
Boil the apricots gently three or four times, letting them cool between each boil.
Skim the syrup well during the last boil and boil it until thick and clear.
Pour the syrup over the apricots and cover them with brandy papers.
Blanch the kernels and add them to the apricots.
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 + brandytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together513 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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