Why it works: Apricot and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Apricot Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots and milk
Remove the apricots from the tin and rub them through a sieve.
Boil the milk, then let it cool slightly.
Make the custard
Beat the yolks of the eggs well and mix them with the cooled milk.
Place the mixture in a jug.
Set the jug in a pan of boiling water, stirring continuously until it thickens.
Set the cream
Dissolve the gelatin in a little hot water.
Add the dissolved gelatin to the milk mixture, stirring until nearly cold.
Mix in the sieved apricots.
Pour the mixture into an oiled mould.
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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Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together826 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,712 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 flavour and colour, and body from the purée.
- Gelatine
- Sets the cream so it holds its shape when turned out.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base of the custard.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a custard when gently heated and add richness.
The step that matters
Setting the custard over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the heat is too high they can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring continuously over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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