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Spiced Crab Jelly

A jelly made from crab apples, water, vinegar, cinnamon bark, allspice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Crab Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Boil crab apples, water, vinegar, cinnamon bark, and allspice together until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a flannel bag.

Make the jelly

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar to the 1 pound of juice obtained.

  2. Heat the sugar in the oven and mix it with the juice.

  3. Cook the mixture until it jellies.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together998 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Crab apples
Provide the fruit and natural pectin that help the jelly set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the jelly set and keep its texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the jelly a sharp, bright flavour.
Cinnamon bark
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the jelly.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it jellies. Jelly sets when enough sugar and pectin are concentrated by boiling off water and the mixture reaches the gel point. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or sugary.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, 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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