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Dessert

Pear Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from boiled pears and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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

Prepare the pears

  1. Boil the pears in water for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the pears from the pot.

  3. Peel the pears.

  4. Cut the pears into pieces.

  5. Return the pieces to the pot.

  6. Boil until tender.

  7. Pass the pulp through a colander using a wooden pestle.

  8. Weigh the pulp.

Make the marmalade

  1. Add 12 ounces of sugar for every pound of pulp.

  2. Clarify the sugar.

  3. Boil the sugar until it reaches the little crack stage.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Add the pulp to the sugar.

  6. Mix well.

  7. Return to heat.

  8. Boil until it reaches the same consistency as apricot marmalade.

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 of the pulp, along with pectin and natural fruit flavor that set and scent the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled, helps the pulp thicken into a spreadable set.

The step that matters

Boil the marmalade until it matches apricot marmalade. Sugar and pulp must be cooked long enough for the mixture to reach the right sugar concentration and set. Too little cooking leaves it runny; overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.

“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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