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Dessert

Grape Sweetmeats

A preserved grape confection made by cooking grape pulp and skins with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Grape Sweetmeats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Remove grapes from stems and separate the pulp from the skins using your thumbs and forefingers.

  2. Place the pulp in a porcelain kettle and stew gently until the seeds loosen.

  3. Strain and rub the pulp through a sieve.

  4. Weigh the pulp with the skins.

  5. Set the weighed pulp aside.

Cook and sugar

  1. In the kettle, combine the skins and juice, cover closely, and cook slowly until the skins are tender.

  2. While still boiling, add the sugar.

  3. Move the kettle back to avoid boiling again.

  4. Keep the mixture very hot for 15 minutes, ensuring the sugar is thoroughly dissolved.

Can

  1. Pour the fruit into cans and quickly screw down the covers.

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. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit flavor, pulp and skins that give the preserve its body and color.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps preserve it and firm its texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the sugar dissolved while the mixture is very hot. Sugar added to boiling fruit must fully dissolve before cooling; undissolved crystals can gritty the texture and cause uneven thickening. Holding the mixture hot ensures the sugar dissolves completely and the fruit is sterilized before canning.

“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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