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Jams and Jellies

A method for making fruit preserves by boiling fruit with sugar and optionally gelatin.

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

Jams and Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick fruit when just ripened.

  2. Remove stems.

  3. Place fruit in a porcelain-lined kettle or a bright brass/tin kettle.

  4. Crush a little fruit.

  5. Add all fruit to the kettle without water.

  6. Heat the mixture.

  7. Mash the mixture with a potato masher.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  2. Let the strained mixture run off before squeezing.

  3. For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar.

  4. Boil for 25 minutes.

  5. Add sugar.

  6. Boil for 5 minutes.

Finish

  1. Pour into glasses to store.

  2. For jams, bruise fruit thoroughly.

  3. Boil for 15–20 minutes.

  4. Add sugar.

  5. Boil for 30 minutes longer.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  3. Currant + gelatintop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together33 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Fruit
Provides the flavour, colour and natural pectin that set the jelly or body of the jam.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it set into a firm gel while preserving it.
Gelatin
Adds gelling power so the juice sets firmly, used here for cherry juice.

The step that matters

Let the strained mixture run off before squeezing. Squeezing the jelly bag pushes solids and cloudy particles through, making the jelly murky. Letting it drip keeps the juice clear.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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