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Dessert

Peach Preserves

A sweet preserve made from peaches, sugar, water, and peach pits, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches.

  2. Remove the pits carefully, keeping the fruit unbroken.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup using ½ cup of water for each pound of sugar.

  2. Blanch 3 peach pits for each pound of preserves.

  3. Add them to the syrup.

  4. Boil the syrup for 15 minutes.

  5. Skim until perfectly clean.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the peaches.

  2. Cook until clear, about 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the peaches.

  4. Drain them on a sieve.

  5. Let them cool completely.

  6. Boil the syrup down until it is as thick as molasses.

  7. Put the peaches in jars.

  8. Pour the hot syrup over them.

  9. Seal the 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. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 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

Peaches
Provide the fruit that is cooked until clear and set in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, when boiled down, thickens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Water
Dissolves the sugar to form the syrup in which the peaches cook.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup down until as thick as molasses. Sugar concentration sets the preserve. Too little boiling leaves a thin syrup that does not gel or keep well, while overboiling can turn the sugar dark and bitter.

“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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