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Dessert

Apricot Pie

A pastry filled with halved apricots, powdered sugar, butter, and glazed with egg white, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,458 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apricot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a dish with puff pastry.

  3. Place the halved apricots in the dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the powdered sugar and lukewarm butter to the apricots.

  2. Cover with the upper crust of puff pastry.

  3. Glaze the top with egg white and sprinkle with sifted sugar.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 filling and its tart, fruity flavor.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the fruit juices for a softer filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture.
Egg white
Glazes the top, helping the pastry brown and turn glossy in the oven.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that holds and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Glaze the top with egg white. A thin, even egg white glaze helps the pastry brown and turn glossy. Uneven coverage can leave pale patches, and the sifted sugar needs the glaze to stick to the surface.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

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