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Dessert

Apricot Jam

A custard dessert made with apricot jam, lemon juice, sherry, cream, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Apricot Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Spread enough apricot jam to cover the bottom of a glass dish.

  2. Pour the lemon juice and sherry over the jam.

Make the cream

  1. Soak and melt the gelatine.

  2. Boil the cream, then add the sugar and vanilla.

  3. Soak the gelatine in a little milk, melt it, and add to the cream.

  4. When the cream is nearly cold, pour it carefully over the jam.

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. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Sherry + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when cut or spooned.
Cream
Provides richness and the body of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tart lemon and sherry.
Apricot jam
Forms the fruity layer beneath the set cream.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Pouring the cream over the jam. If the cream is still hot, it can melt or mix into the jam layer and blur the two layers. Waiting until it is nearly cold and pouring gently keeps the layers distinct.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, cream, sugar, vanilla, apricot. 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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