Skip to main content
Dessert

To Dry Apricots

Apricots are halved, coated with powdered sugar, and dried in sun or warm place.

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

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and halve the apricots.

  2. Strew the powdered sugar among the apricots in a dish.

Cook the apricots

  1. Set the dish over gentle heat until the sugar melts.

  2. As each piece becomes tender, remove it to a china bowl.

  3. Once all apricots are done, pour the syrup over them.

Dry and store

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

  2. Turn the apricots daily until completely dry in the sun or a warm place.

  3. 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
Provide the fruit that softens in syrup and then dries into a chewy texture.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into syrup that sweetens the fruit and draws moisture out as it dries.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat gentle while the sugar melts. Strong heat can scorch the sugar and toughen or darken the fruit before it becomes tender. Gentle heat lets the sugar dissolve into syrup and softens each piece evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Apricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesMixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes