Eight small clear glass cups filled with a smooth, pale apricot-orange set cream with a soft matte top, one with a spoonful taken out, on a pale ash wood tray beside a teaspoon. — Apricot Bavarian cream set in small glass cups.

Apricot Bavarois (1907)

Name: Apricot Bavarois
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 4 h 30 min
Total time: 5 h
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 3/4 cup water, for the syrup; 1 lb ripe apricots; 1/4 cup water, for poaching the apricots; 1 tbsp unflavored powdered gelatin; 1/4 cup cold water, for the gelatin; 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, from about 2 lemons; 2/3 cup heavy cream

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Escoffier’s apricot bavarois of 1907: poached apricot purée, sugar syrup and lemon set lightly with gelatin and folded with whipped cream, served in cups.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 28, 2026

Recipe makes: About 4 1/4 cups, 8 small cups
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 4 hr 30 min
Total: 5 hr

The poached apricots and the syrup must cool before mixing, and the cream needs about 4 hours in the refrigerator to set. Make it in the morning for dinner, or the day before.

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Apricot Bavarian cream set in small glass cups.

The story behind the recipe

Before the plate of fruit that closed it, Air France’s Concorde card from Paris to Washington offered an apricot Bavarian cream. The dish was old by then: Auguste Escoffier’s A Guide to Modern Cookery (London, 1907) names apricots among the fruits for his Bavarois, and this recipe comes from that book, printed 71 years before the flight. The card doesn’t say how Air France’s own cooks made theirs.

Where are the eggs?

Escoffier sorts his Bavarois into two kinds, with cream and with fruit, and they are built differently. The cream Bavarois is a custard: a pound of sugar worked with fourteen egg yolks, then milk infused with vanilla, gelatin and whipped cream. The fruit Bavarois has no eggs at all. It is fruit purée stretched with an equal measure of syrup, sharpened with the juice of three lemons, set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream. Pieces of fruit may go in too, and pulpy fruits such as apricots, he says, go in poached.

His syrup is given by strength: “syrup at 30° (saccharom.),” a reading on the saccharometer, the sugar hydrometer of the professional kitchen. The same instrument governs his ices, including the Apricot Ice (1907) that ended a royal train menu in 1945.

He molds most Bavarois in a fancy mold with a central tube, packed in broken ice, and turns them out. Then he adds a choice: serve it instead in a deep silver timbale surrounded with ice, and since it never has to stand up on its own, “the preparation does not need to be so cohesive, and is therefore much more delicate.”

Making it today

Small cups take the place of his silver timbale, and the lighter set is our choice: a tablespoon of powdered gelatin for this half batch, about two-thirds of the half ounce his proportions call for, because the cream never leaves its cup. One cup of sugar dissolved in three-quarters of a cup of water gives a syrup close to his 30°. Poaching the fresh apricots before they are puréed is our choice, borrowed from his treatment of the fruit pieces. Halving his pints keeps the dish to eight small servings.

The meal it belonged to, from caviar to cognac, and the card’s promise to fit that meal to the time zones are the subject of What Did Concorde Serve on the Way to Washington in 1978?

One pint of fruit purée, diluted with one pint of syrup at 30° (saccharom.). Add the juice of three lemons, one oz. of dissolved gelatine, strained through linen, and one pint of whipped cream. ...

A. EscoffierA Guide to Modern Cookery (London: William Heinemann, 1907), no. 2615, Bavarois aux Fruits, and no. 2616, The Moulding and Dishing of Bavarois, pp. 757–758; no. 2623, Various Fruit Bavarois, p. 759

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Ingredients

For about 4 1/4 cups, 8 small cups. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for about 4 1/4 cups, 8 small cups.

Sugar1 cup
Water, for the syrup3/4 cup
Ripe apricots1 lb
Water, for poaching the apricots1/4 cup
Unflavored powdered gelatin1 tbsp
Cold water, for the gelatin1/4 cup
Fresh lemon juice, from about 2 lemons1/4 cup
Heavy cream2/3 cup

Ingredients as written here

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water, for the syrup
1 lb ripe apricots
1/4 cup water, for poaching the apricots
1 tbsp unflavored powdered gelatin
1/4 cup cold water, for the gelatin
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, from about 2 lemons
2/3 cup heavy cream

Equipment

Small saucepan for the syrup
Saucepan with a lid
Blender or food processor
Fine sieve
Liquid measuring cup
Small heatproof bowl
Large bowl set over a bowl of ice water
Whisk or electric mixer
Eight small glass cups or ramekins of about 5 fl oz each

Instructions

Stir the sugar and the water for the syrup in the small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring it just to a boil, take it off the heat and let the syrup cool completely.
Halve and pit the apricots and put them in the lidded saucepan with the water for poaching the apricots. Cover and simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, until very soft. Purée them in the blender and press the purée through the fine sieve. Let it cool.
Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water for the gelatin in the small heatproof bowl and leave it for 5 minutes to soften.
Measure the cooled syrup, then measure out the same volume of apricot purée into the large bowl. Stir in the syrup and the lemon juice.
Warm the softened gelatin gently, in the microwave in short bursts or over a pan of hot water, until it is completely clear. Don’t let it boil. Whisk a few spoonfuls of the apricot mixture into it, then whisk it all back into the bowl.
Set the bowl over the ice water and stir now and then for 15 to 20 minutes, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of raw egg white but still pours.
Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold it gently into the apricot mixture until no streaks remain.
Divide it among the cups and refrigerate at 40°F (4°C) or below for about 4 hours, until set. Serve cold, in the cups.

Nutrition

200calories per serving

Recipe makes: About 4 1/4 cups, 8 small cups
Servings: 8

Estimated per serving (8) from USDA FoodData Central values for apricots, sugar, heavy cream, lemon juice and gelatin.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Keep the apricot purée and the syrup in equal measure, as Escoffier does. A larger batch can set in a serving bowl, which needs about 6 hours.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The proportions of purée, syrup, lemon and cream are Escoffier’s, halved; the gelatin is reduced, and we added the poaching of the apricots for the purée, its timing, the ice-water bath and the cups. Any purée left over after measuring makes a sauce for the top. For a turned-out Bavarois, use 2 tablespoons of gelatin, set it in an oiled 5-cup mold for at least 6 hours, and dip the mold briefly in warm water before turning it out. Escoffier also allows poached apricot pieces folded into the mixture. Keep it covered in the refrigerator; USDA advice is to eat refrigerated leftovers within 3 to 4 days. Contains milk.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.