Name: Apricot and Plum Jam or Marmalade
Ingredients: Apricots and/or plums, stoned and skinned; ½ cup water; Equal weight of fruit pulp and pounded loaf sugar; Bruised kernels of the fruit or a few blanched and bruised bitter almonds (optional)

Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apricot and Plum Jam or Marmalade

Ingredients

Apricots and/or plums, stoned and skinned
½ cup water
Equal weight of fruit pulp and pounded loaf sugar
Bruised kernels of the fruit or a few blanched and bruised bitter almonds (optional)

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Scald the stoned and skinned fruit with water in an earthenware or stone vessel.
Rub the fruit through a coarse sieve or mash it in a bowl.
Measure equal weights of fruit pulp and pounded sugar.

Cook the jam

Boil the mixture for fifteen minutes, stirring and skimming regularly.
Add bruised kernels or bitter almonds for flavor, if desired.

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.

Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots and/or plums: Provide the fruit pulp, which gives the jam its body and main flavor.
Loaf sugar: Sweetens the jam and, as it thickens with boiling, helps it set.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for fifteen minutes, stirring and skimming regularly. Sugar and fruit pectin set only when the mixture reaches a concentrated, boiling state. Stirring prevents scorching on the base, and skimming removes foam so the jam stays clear.

“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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Apricot and Plum Jam or Marmalade