Name: Peach Marmalade
Ingredients: 21 pounds peaches, cut into small pieces; 1 pound sugar; 6 whole allspice; 1 cracked peach seed; 1 inch ginger root, sliced; ½ cup peach juice; ½ teaspoon whole cloves; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon mace

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Peach Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Tie the allspice, peach seed, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and mace in a cheesecloth bag.
Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

Cook and jar

Cook over medium heat until thick and clear, reaching 220°F (105°C).
Pack the hot marmalade into hot jars and seal immediately.
For market packing, process the jars to ensure sterilization and a tight seal.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches: Form the fruit base and provide most of the marmalade's body, flavour and bulk.
Sugar: Sweetens the spread and, with cooking, helps it thicken and keep well.

The step that matters

Cooking to 220°F (105°C). At about 220°F the sugar concentration is high enough for the pectin and acid in the fruit to set the marmalade on cooling. Stopping early leaves it runny and spoilage-prone, while overcooking makes it stiff and can scorch the sugar.

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, allspice, ginger, clove, cinnamon. 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.