Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Jujube Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Dissolve 1 pound of gum Senegal in enough orange-flower water to cover it.
Heat the mixture on a slow fire, stirring continuously until it thickens to a paste.
Clarify ½ pound of loaf sugar and boil it until it reaches a blow stage.
Add the boiled sugar to the paste and mix well.
Continue heating on a very slow fire until the mixture reaches a good consistency.
Dry and cut
Pour the mixture into tin molds about ¼ inch thick and place them in a warm area to dry.
Once dry, remove the paste from the molds and cut it into small pieces or desired shapes.
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.
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
- Gum senegal
- Forms the thickened paste that gives the jujubes their firm, chewy body as it sets.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and body, and helps the paste set firm as it dries.
The step that matters
Continue heating on a very slow fire until the mixture reaches a good consistency. Gum paste thickens as it cooks and dries. Heating too fast can scorch the sugar or make the paste uneven, while heating too little leaves it too soft to set properly when dried.
“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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