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Dessert

Apricot Cream Pie

A pie with a crust, layers of sugar, flour, canned apricots, cream, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 618 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Apricot Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a 9‑inch pie plate with pastry.

  2. Sprinkle ⅓ cup sugar over the bottom.

  3. Sprinkle ¼ cup flour over the sugar.

  4. Place a layer of sweetened canned apricots on top of the flour.

  5. Sprinkle with another ⅓ cup of sugar and ¼ cup of flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the cream over all and sprinkle with a little cinnamon.

  2. Do not stir the flour and cream together.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the custard is set.

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 + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Absorbs liquid from the cream so the filling thickens and sets rather than running.
Cream
Forms the custard that sets during baking, giving the pie its rich, smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps tenderize the custard as it sets.
Sweetened canned apricots
Supply the fruit flavour and sweetness in the pie.

The step that matters

Do not stir the flour and cream together. Layering keeps the flour above the cream so it can thicken the custard gently as it bakes. Stirring spreads the flour through the liquid and can leave lumps or a loose, uneven set.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, cream, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream, cinnamon. 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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