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Dessert

Cranberry Conserve

A preserve made from cranberries, walnuts, orange pulp, raisins, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cranberry Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Put cranberries in a saucepan with ⅔ cup water and boil until the skins break.

  2. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

Cook the preserve

  1. Add the remaining water, sugar, raisins, walnuts broken into small pieces, and finely cut orange pulp.

  2. Bring slowly to a boil and cook gently for 30 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into small molds and chill.

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. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and natural pectin that helps the preserve set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, balances the tartness, and helps the preserve set and keep.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a soft, chewy texture.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft preserve.
Orange
Adds citrus aroma and acidity that brightens the sweet fruit.

The step that matters

Bring slowly to a boil and cook gently. Sugar and fruit scorch easily if heated too hard. A gentle simmer lets the mixture thicken evenly as water evaporates, so the pectin and sugar can set properly once cooled.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, meat, sugar, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, meat, sugar, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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