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Grape Fruit Marmalade

A preserve made from grapes, lemons, sugar, and water, boiled to a jelly consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Grape Fruit Marmalade

Why it works: Grape and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Fruit Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the fruit

  1. Slice the lemons and set them aside with the grape fruits.

  2. To each pint of cut fruit, add 3 pints of cold water and let it stand for 24 hours.

Boil and rest

  1. After 24 hours, add the jelly from the seeds and boil hard for 1 hour.

  2. Set aside for another 24 hours.

Add sugar and set

  1. To each pint of boiled fruit and water, add 1½ pounds of sugar.

  2. Boil hard until it reaches the jelly stage, which may take about 1 hour or a little longer.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Grape fruits
Provide the bitter peel and pulp, and the seeds release pectin that helps the marmalade set.
Lemons
Add acidity and natural pectin, which supports setting and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled down, helps it set into a firm gel.

The step that matters

Boil until the jelly stage. Undercooked marmalade stays runny because the pectin and sugar have not concentrated enough to gel, while overboiling makes it stiff and dull. Watching for the jelly stage gives a set that is firm but still spreadable.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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