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Apricot and Pineapple Jam

A jam made from apricots and pineapple cooked with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 377 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apricot and Pineapple Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the apricots

  1. Cut apricots in halves and mix with sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Set the mixture on the stove and cook for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring constantly.

Cook the pineapple

  1. Cut the pineapple and cook it with the same amount of sugar for 30 minutes.

Combine and store

  1. Combine the cooked pineapple with the apricots and remove from heat.

  2. Store the jam in airtight containers.

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. Apricot + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots
Provide the bulk of the jam, its main flavor, and natural pectin that helps it thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit, helps it set, and preserves the jam.
Pineapple
Adds tart, tropical flavor and acidity that brightens the apricots.

The step that matters

Stirring the apricot and sugar mixture constantly. Fruit cooked with a large amount of sugar is thick and sticks to the pan, so it scorches easily on the bottom. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the jam from burning during the 40 to 45 minute cook.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, 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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