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Dessert

Peach Marmalade

A preserved fruit spread made from ripe peaches, sugar, cracked kernels, and sealed with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Brush the fur from the peaches.

  2. Cut the peaches in halves.

  3. Remove the stones.

  4. Crack half of the peach stones.

  5. Pour boiling water over the cracked kernels.

  6. Rub off the skins.

  7. Cut the kernels into strips lengthwise.

  8. Weigh the peaches.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Place the peaches in a preserving kettle with ¾ of their weight in sugar.

  2. Set the kettle over low heat.

  3. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon after it begins to boil.

  4. Let the mixture boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Add the kernels after 25 minutes of boiling.

Jar and seal

  1. Transfer the marmalade into earthen jars.

  2. Let it cool completely.

  3. Place a round of paper dipped in brandy on top of each jar.

  4. Seal the jars airtight.

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 + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Sound, ripe peaches
Provide the fruit, pulp and natural pectin that set the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps thicken the marmalade as it boils down.
Cracked peach kernels
Add a subtle almond-like aroma to the marmalade.

The step that matters

Add the kernels after 25 minutes of boiling. Adding the kernels late keeps their flavour fresh and prevents them from overpowering the fruit during the long boil. Stirring constantly after the mixture boils prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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