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Dessert

Apple Jam

A jam made from tart apples, sugar, apple juice, and ginger root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Apple Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and quarter the apples.

  2. Blanch the apples in boiling water for 2 minutes.

Make the jam

  1. Cook the sugar and apple juice mixture to 215°F (102°C).

  2. Add the apples and cook until the mixture reaches 218°F (103°C).

  3. Process the jam for 25 minutes at 170°F (77°C).

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. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Tart apples
Provide the fruit body and pectin-rich pulp that gives the jam its structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with cooking, helps it thicken and set by binding water.
Apple juice
Supplies liquid for dissolving the sugar and cooking the fruit to a jammy consistency.
Crushed ginger root
Adds aroma and a warm, spicy flavour to the jam.

The step that matters

Cooking the apples to 218°F (103°C). Jam sets when enough sugar and pectin are concentrated at the right point. Stopping short leaves the jam runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour, so the endpoint temperature matters.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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