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Dessert

Marmalade of Mixed Fruits

A preserved fruit spread made from apples, pears, peaches, and quinces cooked with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 649 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Marmalade of Mixed Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and finely cut equal quantities of apples, pears, peaches, and quinces.

Cook the fruit

  1. Boil the fruit with ½ cup of water until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the fruit and mash it well.

  3. Clean the kettle and return the mashed fruit to it.

Make the marmalade

  1. Add 3 pounds of sugar and cook slowly for 2 hours.

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. Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pear + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

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

  4. Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 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

Mixed fruits
Provide the pectin, acid and fruit flavor that set and season the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Cooking the fruit and sugar slowly. Cooking slowly for the full two hours lets excess water evaporate and the sugar concentrate, so the mixture thickens into a spreadable marmalade rather than staying runny. Rushing this stage leaves it loose.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, pear, quince, sugar):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Peachthe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, pear, quince, sugar. 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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