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Dessert

Grape Sweetmeat

A sweet preserve made from grapes, raisins, sugar, and orange, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Sweetmeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pulp the grapes and cook until the seeds rise to the surface.

  2. Skim off the seeds and add the skins.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes, then add the sugar, orange, and raisins.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes, or until the mixture is as thick as marmalade.

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Grape + raisintop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit body and pulp that cooks down into the thick sweetmeat.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it thicken into a firm, spreadable set as it boils.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the finished sweetmeat.
Oranges
Contribute acidity and aroma that brighten the fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until as thick as marmalade. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves a runny sweetmeat, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky once cooled.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, orange. 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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