Skip to main content
Dessert

Apricot Cream

A sweet apricot dessert thickened with isinglass and set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apricot Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and syrup

  1. Peel the apricots and remove the stones and kernels.

  2. In a pot, heat the clarified sugar until it boils gently for 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Place the apricots and sugar mixture into a tammy (fine sieve) along with the lemon juice.

  2. Rub the mixture through the tammy until smooth.

  3. Gradually mix in the isinglass until well combined, but use less than for jellies.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and surround it with ice to 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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Apricot + gelatintop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Apricots
Provide the main fruit flavour and the body of the cream once puréed.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps balance the tartness of the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apricot flavour.
Isinglass (gelatin)
Sets the purée into a firm, tender cream as it cools.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass. Gelatin must be mixed in evenly, and too much makes the cream rubbery while too little leaves it runny. The record asks for less than a jelly would use, so the set stays soft and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, sugar, gelatin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, sugar, gelatin. 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.

More apricot cream recipes

Ice 3 See all 35 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes