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Dessert

An Apricot Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with apricots, eggs, cream, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

An Apricot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apricots

  1. Coddle the apricots until very tender, then break them into small pieces.

  2. Sweeten the apricots to your taste and let them cool.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the cooled apricots with 6 eggs and 2 well-beaten egg whites.

  2. Add 1 pint of cream to the mixture and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay puff pastry in a dish and pour the apricot mixture into it.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Once baked, sprinkle fine sugar on top and serve hot.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apricot + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,116 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Eggs set the mixture into a soft, sliceable custard as they cook.
Egg whites
Whites add lightness and help the custard set with some airiness.
Cream
Cream adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a smoother, softer texture.
Apricots
Cooked apricots supply the main fruit flavor and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooling the apricots before mixing. Adding hot apricots to beaten eggs can start cooking the eggs unevenly, producing lumps or a grainy texture. Letting them cool first keeps the custard smooth and evenly set.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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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