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Dessert

Crab Apple or Porter Apple Jelly

A jelly made from crab or porter apples, sugar, brandy, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Crab Apple or Porter Apple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash the apples.

  2. Remove the stem and blossom ends.

  3. Cut the apples into quarters without peeling or removing seeds.

  4. Place the apples in a preserving kettle and cover with cold water.

  5. Boil until soft.

Extract the juice

  1. Transfer the apples to a coarse sieve and press out all the juice.

  2. Strain the juice again through a flannel bag without squeezing.

Make and store the jelly

  1. Measure the juice and add ½ pint of sugar for every quart of juice.

  2. Boil down the mixture until it reduces by half.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Pour the jelly into glasses.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon of brandy.

  6. Cover the glasses.

  7. Store in a cool, dry place.

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. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 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).

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

Apples
Provide the pectin and natural acid that let the juice set into jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with boiling, helps the juice thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture until it reduces by half.. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar so the pectin and acid can gel. Too little boiling leaves a runny jelly, while overboiling can make it stiff or cause sugar to crystallise.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe 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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