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Dessert

Apricot Ice

A frozen dessert made from apricots, sugar, water, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apricot Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix flour with a little water until smooth, then stir into the boiling mixture.

Freeze

  1. Once the mixture is cold, add the apricots pressed through a colander and freeze.

  2. When half frozen, add the cream and continue freezing.

  3. Let it stand for an hour or more before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  4. Flour + apricottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,068 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, dissolved in the syrup, lowers the freezing point for a softer texture.
Flour
Thickens the boiling syrup so the frozen ice stays smoother and less icy.
Apricots
Supply the fruit flavor, acidity and color, and pulp that adds body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, which softens the texture and mutes iciness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream when half frozen. If the cream goes in too early or too late, it may not blend evenly. Partly frozen mixture is slushy, so the cream disperses and the fat keeps ice crystals small and the texture smooth.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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