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Dessert

Apple Marmalade

Apple marmalade is a preserve made from peeled, quartered apples cooked with water, sugar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the apples.

  2. Cover the apples with water and cook until very soft.

  3. Squeeze the juice and pulp through a thin jelly bag.

Make the marmalade

  1. Weigh the pulp and add ¾ pound of sugar for every pound of pulp.

  2. Dissolve a little gelatin in water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Boil steadily for 20 minutes.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Apple + gelatintop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples
Provide the pectin-rich pulp and the tart flavor that the marmalade is built on.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set as it thickens.
Gelatin
Adds extra setting power so the marmalade holds its shape.

The step that matters

Boil steadily for 20 minutes. The mixture must reach a steady boil so enough water evaporates and the sugar and pectin can set the marmalade. Too little boiling leaves it runny.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin. 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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