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Dessert

Peach Jam

A preserved fruit spread made from peaches, bitter almonds, powdered sugar, and apple jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Stone and bruise the peaches, then place them in a preserving pan and boil.

  2. Mash the peaches while stirring with a spatula until soft, then pass through a large sieve.

Add the almonds and sugar

  1. Pound the bitter almonds with powdered sugar to prevent oiling, then add ½ ounce of this mixture for every pound of jam.

  2. Combine the jam and almond mixture in a pot and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add 10 ounces of powdered sugar for every pound of jam, mix well, and boil for an additional 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pot and finish

  1. Once boiled, transfer the jam to pots or pans, let it cool, and top with apple jelly and brandy paper.

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. Peach + appletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  2. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + appletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe peaches
Form the bulk of the jam and provide its fruit flavor.
Bitter almonds
Add a distinctive almond aroma to the jam.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep.
Apple jelly
Adds a glossy layer on top of the finished jam.

The step that matters

Boiling with the added sugar. Once the sugar goes in, the jam is thick and can scorch on the base of the pan. Stirring constantly prevents sticking and burning, and the extended boil concentrates the jam so it sets properly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, apple. 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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