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Sauce

Apricot Sauce

A sauce made from apricot marmalade, butter, water, and brandy, served over boiled apple dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Apricot Sauce

Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apricot Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Put apricot marmalade, butter, and water into a saucepan.

  2. Set on the stove and stir briskly until it comes to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and add brandy, mixing for one more minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over boiled apple dumplings and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apricot marmalade
Provides the fruit flavor and sweetness that forms the body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and glossy finish.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth and flavor, added off the heat so it is not cooked away.

The step that matters

Add the brandy off the heat. Alcohol evaporates and its aroma fades when boiled, so adding brandy after removing the pan from heat, then mixing briefly, keeps more of its flavor in the finished sauce.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, brandy):

  1. Apricotthe original
  2. Currantfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, brandy. 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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