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Dessert

Pear Marmalade

A preserve made from ripe pears, sugar, and water, cooked until thickened and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Pear Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marmalade

  1. Combine the pears, sugar, and water in a preserving pan.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Jar and store

  1. Once thickened, pour into sterilized jars and seal.

  2. Let cool before storing.

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. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 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

Pears
Provide the bulk and fruity flavor, and their pectin helps the mixture thicken as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and keep by binding water and thickening the fruit.

The step that matters

Cooking until thickened. Pears and sugar set only when enough water evaporates and sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves a runny marmalade, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and make it bitter.

“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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