Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Peach Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peaches
Peel peaches and remove the stones.
Briefly immerse peaches in boiling water, then drain.
Pass the peaches through a sieve to obtain the pulp.
Make the sugar syrup
For every pound of pulp, clarify 12 ounces of loaf sugar and boil it to a feather stage.
Cook and pot the jam
Add the pulp, reduced to half, to the sugar and mix well.
Boil the mixture for five minutes, then transfer to pots.
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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Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Peach pulp
- Supplies the fruit flavour and body that make up most of the jam.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the jam, helps it set, and preserves it by binding water.
The step that matters
Boiling the mixture for five minutes after adding the pulp. Sugar and fruit must be boiled together long enough to concentrate the mixture and let it set. Too short a boil leaves the jam loose, while overboiling can darken it and make it stiff.
“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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