Skip to main content
Dessert

Jams and Jellies

A sweet spread made by cooking fruit with sugar and water, then straining and setting into jars.

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

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Jams and Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Prepare the fruit by peeling, coring, and slicing as needed.

  2. Cook the prepared fruit with enough water to boil.

  3. For jelly, cook the fruit in a small amount of water until soft.

Extract and sweeten

  1. Transfer the cooked fruit to a bag or press to extract the juice.

  2. Add sugar in a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 (sugar to fruit) based on preference.

Concentrate and store

  1. Evaporate the juice with sugar until it reaches a density of 30° to 32° Brix.

  2. Pour the hot jelly into tumblers for storage.

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

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 pulp or juice
Provides the pectin, acid and flavor that the jam or jelly is built from.
Pure cane sugar
Sweetens the product and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Evaporating to 30° to 32° Brix. Sugar and fruit solids must be concentrated to the right density so the mixture sets when cooled. Too little concentration leaves it runny; overcooking can make it stiff and sugary.

“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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes