Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apricot Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Skin the apricots, break them in halves, and remove the stones.
Weigh the fruit and measure out an equal amount of sugar.
Macerate
Layer the apricots in a large dish, sprinkling each layer with sugar, and let them stand for 12 hours.
Remove the kernels from the stones and blanch them.
Cook and jar
In a preserving pan, combine the fruit, sugar, and kernels, and simmer gently while skimming.
As the apricot pieces become clear, remove them from the syrup and place them in jars.
Pour the syrup and kernels over the apricots, cover with paper dipped in salad oil, and seal with tissue paper brushed with egg white.
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 + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 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 body and flavour that the jam is built around.
- Sugar
- Sweetens and draws water out of the fruit, helping the jam thicken and keep.
- Apricot kernels
- Add a subtle almond-like aroma to the syrup and fruit.
The step that matters
Removing the apricot pieces as they turn clear. Fruit turns translucent as sugar replaces water inside it. Cooking past that point lets the pieces break down and dulls the fruit's flavour and texture, so timing the removal matters.
“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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