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To Dry Apricots Whole

A method for drying whole apricots in syrup and oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Dry Apricots Whole

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Gather apricots that are not too ripe and remove the stones with a skewer.

  2. Peel the apricots and sprinkle sugar over them to maintain their color.

Make the syrup and soak

  1. Make a syrup with ½ cup of water and 1 pound of sugar; boil and skim it, then let it cool.

  2. Add the apricots to the syrup and heat gradually over low heat until they scald but do not boil, turning them frequently.

  3. Let the apricots sit in the syrup overnight.

  4. Scald the apricots again slowly for 30 minutes, allowing them to just boil, then set aside until the next day.

Finish in fresh syrup and dry

  1. Make fresh syrup by dissolving sugar in the previous syrup, then boil and skim it clear.

  2. Add the apricots to the fresh syrup and boil gently until they are clear.

  3. Let the apricots sit in the syrup overnight again.

  4. Drain the apricots and place them on an earthen dish, covering with a hair sieve.

  5. Set them in a cool oven to dry, turning frequently.

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 fruit whose flesh softens and turns translucent as it absorbs the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in the syrup, draws out water so the apricots preserve and dry.

The step that matters

Heating the apricots gently in the syrup. Boiling vigorously breaks down the fruit and makes it ragged, while gentle heat lets sugar penetrate slowly, keeping the apricots whole and clear through repeated soaking.

“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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