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White Chocolate & Apricot Cheesecake

A stunning centrepiece for any celebration or the perfect end to a Sunday lunch

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Why it works: Apricot and cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 65 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Blitz the shortbread biscuits to fine crumbs, stir in the melted butter, press firmly into the base of a 20cm (8in) springform tin, and chill while you make the filling.

  2. Soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes until soft.

  3. Halve and stone the apricots, then simmer them in a small pan with a splash of water and 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar for 5 minutes until soft. Blend until smooth and let cool slightly.

  4. Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth, then set aside to cool a little.

  5. Whip the double cream with the icing sugar until it holds soft peaks.

  6. Beat the soft cheese with the remaining caster sugar until smooth. Squeeze out the gelatine, then stir it into 3 tablespoons of the warm apricot purée until fully dissolved.

  7. Stir the melted white chocolate into the soft cheese mixture, then stir in the gelatine and apricot mixture. Fold in the whipped cream until evenly combined.

  8. Spoon the filling over the chilled base, smooth the top, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours until set.

  9. Swirl the remaining apricot purée over the top, then shave curls of extra white chocolate over the cheesecake to decorate before serving.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apricot + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together65 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,463 recipes

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

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