Skip to main content
Drink

To Dry Apricots

A method for drying apricots by simmering them with sugar and allowing them to dry on dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Dry Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Arrange the apricots in a deep dish or bowl and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Let the apricots sit overnight.

Make the syrup

  1. Transfer the apricots and sugar into a preserving pan.

  2. Heat the apricots slowly and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes until tender.

  3. Let the apricots remain in the syrup for 2 to 3 days.

Dry and serve

  1. Drain the apricots and spread them out on dishes to dry.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots
Provides the fruit body that softens in syrup and dries into a chewy piece.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and sweetens it, helping it keep as it dries.

The step that matters

Heating the apricots slowly. Gentle heat lets the sugar syrup penetrate and soften the fruit evenly. Fast boiling toughens the skins and can break the apricots apart before they become tender.

“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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes