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To Preserve Apricots IX Jelly

A method for preserving apricots and making a jelly from them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

To Preserve Apricots IX Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare the apricots very thin and remove the stones.

  2. Weigh an equal quantity of fine powdered sugar and sprinkle it over the fruit.

  3. The next day, boil the fruit gently until clear.

  4. Transfer the fruit to a bowl and pour the liquid over it.

Make the preserves

  1. The following day, combine the liquid with 1 quart of codlin liquor and 1 pound of fine sugar.

  2. Boil quickly until it reaches a jelly consistency.

  3. Add the fruit to the mixture, bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and pour into small pots.

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. Apricot + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

Sugar and apple 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

Apricots
Provide the fruit bulk, flavour and pectin-bearing pulp that the preserve sets around.
Fine powdered sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and sweetens it, softening the fruit before cooking.
Codlin liquor
Adds pectin and liquid so the syrup can reach a jelly-like set.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, with boiling, helps it thicken to a jelly consistency.

The step that matters

Boiling to a jelly consistency. Sugar, pectin and acid must reach the right concentration to set. Boiling too briefly leaves the preserve runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Apricotthe original
  4. Quincefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple. 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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