Skip to main content
Dessert

Pine-apple and Rhubarb Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from pineapple, rhubarb, orange juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rhubarb and orange work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 299 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Pine-apple and Rhubarb Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the pineapple from the tin and chop it into small pieces.

  2. Cook the pineapple in its own juice until tender.

  3. In a separate pot, stew the rhubarb until soft.

Make the marmalade

  1. Mix the cooked rhubarb with the pineapple and cook together for a few minutes.

  2. For every pint of the mixture, add 10 oz of sugar and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Store the marmalade in small glass jars.

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. Rhubarb + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pineapple + rhubarbtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

  5. 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

Pineapple chunks
Provides the main fruit body and sweet tropical flavour to the marmalade.
Rhubarb
Adds tartness and bulk, balancing the sweetness of the pineapple and sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, as it boils, helps thicken it into a spreadable set.
Oranges
Contribute acidity and citrus aroma, and their juice helps the marmalade set.

The step that matters

Boiling with the sugar for 20 minutes. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach a rolling boil for long enough that the sugar and fruit pectin set properly. Too short a boil leaves the marmalade runny, while over-boiling can darken and scorch it.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, orange, 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesRhubarb PieRhubarb Pie152 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesPineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipes