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To Dry Apricots in Half

This recipe dries apricots by halving them, sugaring, simmering, and sun‑drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Dry Apricots in Half

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and halve the apricots, weighing them afterward.

  2. Place them in a dish and sprinkle the sugar over them.

Cook the fruit

  1. When the sugar melts, set the fruit over a gentle heat on the stove.

  2. As each piece becomes tender, remove it and place it in a bowl.

  3. Once finished, pour the syrup over the apricots.

  4. After a day or two, remove the syrup, leaving a little in each half.

Dry and store

  1. Turn the apricots daily until they are completely dry, either in the sun or a warm place.

  2. Store in boxes with layers of paper.

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. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
The main fruit, which softens in the syrup and dries into a chewy, concentrated snack.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and forms a syrup that preserves it and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the fruit gently in the sugar syrup. Sugar draws water out of the apricots and dissolves into syrup. Gentle heat lets the fruit soften evenly without breaking apart or scorching, and the syrup then helps preserve it as it dries.

“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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