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Dessert

Peach Jam

A jam made from ripe peaches, powdered sugar, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peach Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Gather ripe peaches, then peel and stone them.

  2. Place the peaches in a preserving pan over heat until hot.

  3. Pass the hot peaches through a sieve to obtain pulp.

Make the jam

  1. Add the same weight of powdered sugar to the pulp.

  2. Incorporate the pounded bitter almonds.

  3. Boil the mixture for 10 to 19 minutes, stirring and skimming well.

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. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe peaches
Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and main flavour of the jam.
Powdered loaf sugar
Adds sweetness, binds water to help the jam thicken, and helps preserve it.
Bitter almonds
Add a distinctive bitter almond aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 10 to 19 minutes, stirring and skimming well. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit until the jam reaches its setting point. Too little boiling leaves it runny and prone to spoiling, while too much darkens and dries it. Stirring prevents scorching on the base of the pan, and skimming removes foam that would cloud the jam.

“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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