Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Beignets d’Abricot
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the apricots in half and remove the pits.
Cook the apricots in the syrup until tender; cool and drain on a sieve.
Cover the fruit with yeast batter and place them on buttered strips of paper.
Let them stand for 30 minutes in a warm place.
Drop them into plenty of boiling fat and fry until golden.
Drain on a cloth or paper, sprinkle with powdered sugar and ground cinnamon, and serve on a dish covered with a folded napkin.
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.
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Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Apricot + cinnamontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together618 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Syrup + cinnamontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together990 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Pearfits better
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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