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Dessert

Pumpkin Jam

A sweet preserve made from pumpkin, molasses, cloves, ginger, and sour apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Peel, seed, and cut the pumpkin into 2-3 inch pieces.

  2. Lay the pieces on a dish to dry overnight.

  3. Place the dried pumpkin in a preserving pan and barely cover with molasses.

Cook the jam

  1. Add cloves and ginger to taste.

  2. Boil until the pumpkin is soft.

  3. Add 6 sour apples, cooked but not peeled, for extra flavor.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Ginger + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pumpkin + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together736 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk of the jam and, once softened, its body and sweetness.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark, rich flavor while helping the pumpkin cook down.
Sour apples
Add acidity and natural pectin, helping the jam set and balancing the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil until the pumpkin is soft. The pumpkin is only barely covered by molasses, so it can scorch if the heat is too high or it is left unattended. Cooking gently and stirring keeps it from burning while it softens fully.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, clove, ginger, apple. 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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