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Grape Marmalade

A marmalade made from grapes, oranges, lemon, sugar, walnuts, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove seeds from the grapes and use the skins and pulp.

  2. Grind the oranges and lemon until fine, then add to the grapes.

Cook

  1. Add 1 cup of sugar for each cup of the grape mixture.

  2. Cook until the juice forms a light jelly.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in the chopped walnuts and raisins.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  5. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Skins and pulp provide the fruit body, natural pectin and flavour of the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, as it cooks, helps the juice thicken into a jelly-like set.
Oranges
Add citrus acidity and bitter aroma, and their peel contributes pectin to help set the jelly.
Lemon
Adds acidity and extra pectin, helping the marmalade brighten in flavour and set.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft, jelly-like texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the finished marmalade.

The step that matters

Cook until the juice forms a light jelly. Pectin and sugar must be cooked to the right concentration to set. Undercooking leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, orange, lemon, sugar, walnut):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, orange, lemon, sugar, walnut. 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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