Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Conserve

A preserve made from apples, water, sugar, and apricots, cooked until pulped and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the fruit

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Place the apples in a stew jar with the water.

  3. Cook until nicely pulped, then remove from heat.

Make the preserve

  1. Transfer the pulp to a preserving pan.

  2. Add the lump sugar and apricots.

  3. Bring to a boil and let it boil briskly for 20 minutes.

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 + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

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

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

  3. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 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 pulp and natural pectin that help the preserve thicken and set.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
Apricots
Add fruity flavour and colour to the apple base.

The step that matters

Boiling briskly after adding the sugar. The mixture needs a rapid, full boil so the sugar dissolves and the pectin and water evaporate enough for the preserve to thicken. A weak simmer leaves it runny, and a boil that is too long can scorch it on the base of the pan.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Apricotthe original
  4. Quincefits about as well

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.

More apple preserve recipes

Crab 10 See all 28 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes