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Jam, Apricot, or Any Plum

A sweet preserve made from apricots or plums, sugar, water, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Jam, Apricot, or Any Plum

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the stones and blemishes from the apricots.

  2. Place the apricots in a clean saucepan with ½ cup of water over low heat.

  3. Once scalded, rub the apricots through a fine sieve to obtain the pulp.

Cook the jam

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the pulp with 2 pounds of sifted sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil over high heat, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add the apricot kernels and blanched bitter almonds.

  4. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat and pour into jars, covering as directed for raspberry jam.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 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 fruit pulp that forms the body, flavour and natural pectin of the jam.
Sifted loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep well.
Bitter almonds
Add a distinctive aroma and bitter-almond flavour from the kernels.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Sugar must be dissolved and the pulp brought to a hard, rapid boil to reach the concentration needed for setting. Constant stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond. 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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