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Dessert

Apple Jam

Apple jam is a sweet preserve made from sliced apples, sugar, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Slice the apples very thin and place them in a stone jar.

  2. Surround the apples with boiling water and boil until tender.

  3. Transfer the tender apples to a preserving pan.

Make the jam

  1. Add the sugar, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  2. Boil slowly for 30 minutes from the time it begins to simmer.

  3. Remove any scum that forms.

  4. Pour into jars and cover as usual.

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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the jam and pectin that helps it set.
White sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports pectin setting.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 30 minutes from the time it begins to simmer. Boiling slowly lets water evaporate and the apple pectin and sugar concentrate and set. Timing from the first simmer keeps the cook from stopping too early, which leaves the jam runny, or too late, which can scorch the sugar.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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