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Dessert

Superior Pine-apple Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from pineapples, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Superior Pine-apple Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the pineapples, then chop them into small pieces.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped pineapples, sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens.

Jar

  1. Pour the marmalade into sterilized jars and seal while hot.

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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Pineapples
Supply the fruit pieces and most of the bulk and flavour of the marmalade.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and binds water, helping the mixture thicken as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the mixture set.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring frequently. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, so the mixture thickens quickly near the end. Frequent stirring prevents the sugars from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would taste bitter, and keeps the heat even.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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