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Dessert

Pear Marmalade

A sweet preserve made by boiling pears and sugar until thick.

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, peel, and cut them into pieces.

  3. Return the pieces to the pot and boil until tender.

  4. Pass the cooked pears through a colander using a wooden pestle.

Make the marmalade

  1. Weigh the pulp and add 12 oz. of sugar for every pound of pulp.

  2. Clarify the sugar and boil it until it reaches the 'little crack' stage.

  3. Remove from heat, add the pulp, and mix well.

  4. Return to the heat and 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 natural pectin and flavor that set and season the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled with the pulp, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boiling the pulp and sugar to the set point. Sugar and pectin only gel properly at a high enough concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and sugary as it cools.

“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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