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Peach Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from peaches, sugar, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peach Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches and sprinkle sugar over them.

  2. Let sit overnight.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Pour off the juice and heat it in a kettle.

  2. Add the peaches, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice to the hot juice.

  3. Bring to a boil, then stir and mash the mixture well.

  4. Let it boil slowly for 1½ hours until thick.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer to pots without covering and let sit until the next day.

  2. Pour a little brandy over the marmalade and seal tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin-bearing pulp that thickens into marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice while helping the marmalade set thick.
Brandy
Added on top to help seal the marmalade and preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until thick. Long, gentle boiling evaporates water so the sugar and fruit concentrate and set. Stopping too early leaves a runny marmalade, while boiling too hard can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, clove, allspice, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, clove, allspice, brandy. 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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