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Jellies and Jams

A method for making fruit jellies and jams by boiling fruit, extracting juice, and cooking with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Jellies and Jams

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Place fruit in a porcelain kettle with just enough water to prevent burning. Stir the fruit often.

  2. Heat the mixture until it is thoroughly scalded.

  3. Place fruit in a stone jar and set the jar in a kettle of tepid water.

  4. Boil the fruit until softened, stirring the fruit frequently.

Prepare and strain the juice

  1. Strain the juice through a hot, wrung-out flannel or cotton bag, and squeeze the bag as the juice cools.

  2. Cut larger fruits into pieces and remove the cores.

  3. Cover the fruit pieces with water and boil until tender.

  4. Drain the juice for three to four hours or overnight.

Make the jelly

  1. Use equal measures of juice and sugar.

  2. Boil the juice rapidly for ten minutes.

  3. Skim the surface of the boiling juice.

  4. Add sugar to the boiling juice.

  5. Boil the mixture for another ten minutes.

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 + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Grape + quincetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Currant + quincetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Fruit
Supplies pectin and acid, which help the juice set into a firm jelly.
Refined or granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the juice set, while also preserving the jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice rapidly. Rapid boiling concentrates the juice and activates its pectin so it can gel. Juice that is under-boiled stays runny, while overcooking can make the jelly stiff.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, apple, quince, sugar. 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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