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Dessert

As Apricot Pudding

A baked apricot pudding made with apricots, eggs, cream, and puff pastry, topped with fine sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

As Apricot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Coddle the apricots until very tender.

  2. Break the cooked apricots into small pieces and sweeten to taste.

  3. Add the 6 eggs and 2 beaten egg whites once cooled.

  4. Mix well with the cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover a baking dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour in the apricot mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  4. Sprinkle fine sugar on top.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 moisture, softened by coddling into a pulp for the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard-like filling as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the filling set with the whole eggs.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky base under the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only once the apricots have cooled. Adding beaten eggs to hot fruit can cause them to scramble or cook unevenly before the filling is mixed. Letting the apricot mixture cool first keeps the eggs smooth so the filling sets evenly in the oven.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

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