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Dessert

Apricot Pudding

A baked dessert made with apricots, sponge cakes, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apricot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apricots

  1. In a saucepan, simmer the apricots with a little sugar for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and mash the apricots with a fork.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Crumble the sponge cakes and mix them with the mashed apricots.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and pour over the apricot mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and cover it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Turn out and serve hot or cold.

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Sponge cakes
Provide the bready body that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding together.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that softens the cake and forms the custard with the eggs.
Apricots
Supply fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the pudding needs enough time in the oven to firm up. Taking it out too early leaves a loose, wet centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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