Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Apple Jelly to Use for Other Fruit
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pour 1 quart of cold water into a stewpan.
Peel, core, and weigh 4 lbs of good boiling apples.
Stew and strain
Add the apples to the water and stew until well broken.
Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.
Add sugar
For every quart of juice, add 1½ lbs of sugar.
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.
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Boiling apples
- Provide pectin and acid, which help the juice set into a firm jelly.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the jelly set and keep its texture.
The step that matters
Stew the apples until well broken. Cooking the apples until they break down releases their pectin and juice. Too little stewing leaves the juice weak and less able to set.
“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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