Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Apple Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Bake the apples
Cover the earthen jar and place it in the oven.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Make the marmalade
Pass the apples through a colander.
Put them into a saucepan and stir until all the water evaporates.
Transfer to a dessert dish, sprinkle sugar over, and serve cold.
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.
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 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 bulk and body of the marmalade once baked and strained into a purée.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the tart flavour of the cooked apples.
The step that matters
Stir until all the water evaporates. Apples release a lot of liquid as they cook. Driving off that water thickens the purée, so it sets to a spreadable marmalade rather than a loose sauce.
“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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