Name: Apricot Solid
Ingredients: 1 pound apricots; ½ pound sugar; juice of 1 lemon; ½ ounce gelatine; ½ cup water; 1 glass noyau; cream or custard for serving

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 ↓

Apricot Solid

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit base

Cook the apricots with sugar and lemon juice until thick like marmalade.
Add blanched and chopped apricot kernels.
Sieve the fruit and mix in the melted gelatine dissolved in water.

Set and serve

Stir in the noyau and pour into a shallow mold.
Set on ice until firm, then turn out and serve with cream or custard.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,098 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apricots: Provide the main fruit flavour and, when cooked down, the body of the set dessert.
Sugar: Sweetens the fruit and helps it thicken into a marmalade-like mass.
Gelatine: Sets the sieved fruit into a firm, sliceable gel when chilled.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the apricot flavour and helps balance the sugar.
Noyau: Adds a distinct almond-like aroma that deepens the apricot flavour.

The step that matters

Sieve the fruit before adding the gelatine. Cooked apricot contains pieces and fibre that would make the set dessert grainy and uneven. Sieving gives a smooth purée, and dissolved gelatine must be stirred in while the mixture is still warm so it blends evenly rather than setting in lumps.