Name: Pure Sugar, Fruit and Apple Juice Preserves
Ingredients: 100 lbs fruit; 6 gallons fruit juice; sugar (to be determined by syrup degree); 1.5 pints tartaric acid coagulant; 2 gallons concentrated juice (if using concentrated juice); 28-degree sugar and juice jelly (for mixing); 60 lbs jelly (for mixing)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pure Sugar, Fruit and Apple Juice Preserves

Ingredients

100 lbs fruit
6 gallons fruit juice
sugar (to be determined by syrup degree)
1.5 pints tartaric acid coagulant
2 gallons concentrated juice (if using concentrated juice)
28-degree sugar and juice jelly (for mixing)
60 lbs jelly (for mixing)

Directions

Cook the fruit

Place the fruit in a kettle.
Add 6 gallons of juice for every 100 lbs of fruit.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Cook until the liquid reaches 8 degrees on a candy thermometer.
Add sugar.
Cook until the syrup reaches 6 degrees less than the degree called for by the hot process.
Turn off the heat.
Add 1.5 pints of tartaric acid coagulant.

Make the concentrated and jelly portions

If using concentrated juice, add 2 gallons for every 100 lbs of fruit and set with 1.5 pints of tartaric acid coagulant.
For jelly, cook syrup to the same degree as above.
In a separate kettle, make a 28-degree sugar and juice jelly.
Mix the jelly with the pure sugar goods in the desired proportion.
For every 60 lbs of jelly used, add 0.5 pint of tartaric acid coagulant.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fruit: Provides the bulk of the preserve and its characteristic flavour.
Fruit juice: Supplies liquid that carries the sugar and helps the fruit cook into a spreadable mass.
Sugar: Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps it set into a gel.
Tartaric acid coagulant: Adds acidity that helps the pectin in the juice form a firm set.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to the target degree. Sugar concentration controls how firmly the preserve sets. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long makes it stiff and may cause crystallization. Checking the thermometer reading at each stage keeps the set consistent.

“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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Pure Sugar, Fruit and Apple Juice Preserves