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Home-made Raisins

A method for drying grapes into raisins using sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Home-made Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Wash the grapes.

  2. Remove them from the bunches.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Make a thick syrup by combining 2 pounds of sugar and 1 pint of water in a kettle.

  2. Add the grapes to the syrup.

  3. Cook until they split open.

  4. Skim the grapes out.

Dry and store

  1. Dry them on plates.

  2. Pack the dried grapes in sugar for storage.

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. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 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

Sugar
Forms the thick syrup that draws water out of the grapes and preserves them, adding sweetness.
Ripe grapes
Provide the fruit that softens in the syrup and dries into raisins.
Water
Dissolves the sugar to make the syrup the grapes cook in.

The step that matters

Cook until they split open. Cooking in the thick syrup softens the skins and lets water leave the fruit, so the grapes dry evenly. Stopping too early leaves them underdone, while overcooking can make them mushy.

“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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