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Dessert

Apricot Cream

A chilled dessert made with apricot puree, whipped cream, gelatine, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Apricot Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Strain apricots from syrup and pass through a fine sieve.

Make the cream

  1. Mix ½ pint of apricot puree with ½ pint of whipped cream.

  2. Dissolve gelatine in ⅓ cup of the strained syrup, then add sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Strain the gelatine mixture into the cream mixture.

  4. Decorate a mold as desired, pour in the cream, and set in ice until firm.

Serve

  1. Once set, turn out the cream and serve.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Apricot puree
Provides the main apricot flavour and fruit body to the cream.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and airy richness, giving the set cream a soft, light texture.
French gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the cream holds its shape when turned out.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apricot flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolve gelatine fully before combining. Undissolved gelatine leaves specks and weak setting. It must be fully dissolved in warm syrup and mixed in evenly before the cream is poured, so the set is smooth and firm throughout.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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