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Dessert

Peach Jam

A jam made from ripe peaches, sugar, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peach Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and stone the peaches.

  2. Mash the peaches in a preserving pan over heat until hot.

  3. Rub the mashed peaches through a sieve.

Make the jam

  1. For every pound of pulp, add an equal weight of pounded loaf sugar and ½ ounce of blanched, pounded bitter almonds.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring and skimming well.

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. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe peaches
Provide the pulp that forms the body of the jam and its fruity flavour.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it boils down, concentrates the mixture and helps it set and keep.
Bitter almonds
Add a distinctive almond aroma and a slight bitter note to the fruit.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture. Boil for the stated time while stirring and skimming. Stirring stops the sugar and pulp from scorching on the base of the pan, and skimming removes foam so the jam stays clear. Too little boiling leaves the jam runny, while too much makes it stiff and dark.

“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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