Name: Créme Bavaraise Al Abricot—
Ingredients: 8 to 12 ripe apricots; sugar, to taste; 1 tablespoon melted isinglass; 1 pint thick cream; ice; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Créme Bavaraise Al Abricot—

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

Peel and stone the apricots.
Pound the apricots with a little sugar in a mortar.
Rub the pounded apricots through a fine sieve to create a purée.

Make the mixture

Mix the purée with melted isinglass and whipped cream.
Taste and adjust sweetness if necessary.
Whip the mixture over ice until well blended.

Set in a mold

Pour the mixture into a mold.
Surround the mold with ice and salt.
Stir the mixture over ice to prevent the apricot from settling.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apricot + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,116 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots: Provide the main fruit flavour and the body of the purée.
Isinglass: Sets the cream and purée into a firm, sliceable cheese.
Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the purée and balances the apricots' tartness.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over ice to prevent the apricot from settling.. Apricot purée is denser than cream and sinks as it chills. Keeping the mixture moving while it cools keeps the fruit evenly distributed, so the set cheese tastes and looks uniform throughout.