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Peaches and Apricots

A fruit preserve made by cooking peaches with sugar and water into a thick syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Peaches and Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches by placing them in a wire basket and plunging into boiling water until the skins slip off.

  2. Halve the peaches or leave them whole.

  3. Add a few pits for flavor.

  4. Weigh the fruit.

Make the syrup

  1. Measure out ¾ or ½ as much sugar as the weight of the fruit.

  2. Make syrup by adding half as much water as the amount of sugar.

  3. Cook the syrup until thick, about the consistency of molasses.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the peaches to the syrup.

  2. Cook until they are transparent, removing any scum that forms.

  3. Skim the fruit from the syrup and fill jars with the peaches.

  4. If the syrup is thin, cook it down further.

  5. Pour it into the jars, filling them to overflowing.

  6. Tightly screw on the covers.

  7. Turn the jars upside down.

  8. Tighten the covers as they cool.

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. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Peaches
Provide the fruit and flavor that form the body of the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it thickens with the syrup, helps it set and preserves it.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so the syrup can be cooked to a thick consistency.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to the right thickness. Sugar concentration determines whether the jam sets and keeps. Syrup cooked too little stays thin and may not gel, while cooking it too long can make the jam overly 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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