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Dessert

Dried Apricot Pie

A pie filled with stewed apricots, butter, sugar, and nutmeg, topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried Apricot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apricots until perfectly tender, then strain them through a sieve or colander.

  2. Boil the strained apricots with enough water to keep them juicy.

  3. Measure 2 cups of the strained apricots, add the sugar, and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie pan with pastry and sprinkle flour on the bottom.

  2. Add the apricot mixture and 3 teaspoons of butter.

  3. Roll out the top crust very thin and place it over the filling.

  4. Optionally, sprinkle sugar over the top crust before baking for a crispy finish.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for the first 10 minutes.

  6. Then reduce the temperature to 350°F (175°C) and bake for an additional 25 minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Apricot + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

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 body and tartness that forms the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the juices as the filling cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the filling.
Whipping cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Keep the apricots juicy without over-boiling. Boiling with enough water keeps the fruit moist; too little liquid can scorch the filling, while too much makes a runny pie that will not set well once baked.

Swap the apricot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg, 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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