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Dessert

Apple-raisin Marmalades

A fruit preserve made from raisins, apples, and water, optionally flavored with citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Apple-raisin Marmalades

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine ground raisins, chopped apples, and water.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

  3. If desired, add orange juice, lemon juice, and grated rinds.

  4. You can also mix in cooked dried fruits like apricots, pears, peaches, or prunes.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and body, and their pectin-free pulp helps the mixture thicken as it cooks.
Apples
Add natural pectin and structure, helping the marmalade set as it cooks down.
Water
Provides moisture so the fruit can soften and break down during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Thickening depends on water evaporating and the fruit pulp concentrating. Too little heat or time leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can scorch the sugars in the fruit.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, apple, lemon):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Pearfits less well
  4. Cranberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, lemon. 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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