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Dessert

Bavarois of Preserved Apricots

A chilled custard dessert made with isinglass, cream, apricot jam, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,098 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Bavarois of Preserved Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve isinglass in water.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Heat the strained mixture with cream.

Add the fruit

  1. Mix apricot jam with lemon juice.

  2. Blend the jam mixture with ¼ pint of cream.

  3. Combine all mixtures and stir for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain through a coarse muslin strainer.

Set

  1. Stir until nearly cold.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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 + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Cream + apricottop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Sets the mixture as it cools, giving the bavarois its firm, delicate body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, light mouthfeel to the set dessert.
Apricot jam
Provides the main fruit flavour, sweetness and body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apricot flavour and balances its sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir until nearly cold. Isinglass begins to gel as the mixture cools. Stirring until it is nearly cold keeps the cream and fruit evenly blended and prevents lumps or uneven setting once it is poured into the mold.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, apricot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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