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Dessert

Carrot Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from ground carrots, corn syrup or honey, lemons, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,377 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marmalade

  1. Cook the ground carrots until tender.

  2. Add the corn syrup or honey and the quartered, thinly sliced lemons.

  3. Cook slowly until thick without stirring.

Jar

  1. Pack into hot jars.

  2. Sterilize.

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. Carrot + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground carrot
Forms the bulk and body of the marmalade as it cooks down.
Corn syrup or honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the mixture thicken as water evaporates.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.
Ground ginger root
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the finished marmalade.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until thick without stirring.. Thickening depends on water evaporating and sugar concentrating as the mixture cooks. Cooking too fast can scorch the bottom or leave the marmalade too thin, so the cook should watch it closely.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, corn, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, corn, ginger. 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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