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Dessert

Marmalade of Nonsuch Apples

A sweet preserve made from Nonsuch apples, lemon juice, sugar, and lemon rind, cooked until thick and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Marmalade of Nonsuch Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marmalade

  1. In a pot, combine ½ cup of water and 2 lbs of nonsuch apples, peeled and cored.

  2. Add the juice of 1 large lemon and stew gently until smooth.

  3. Boil quickly while stirring until it thickens and becomes dry.

  4. A few minutes before done, add the grated rinds of 2 lemons.

  5. When it leaves the bottom of the pot visible, press into molds.

Store and serve

  1. Store for winter use or serve plain or with blanched almonds and custard.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

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

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

Nonsuch apples
Provide the bulk of the pectin and tart flavor that set and shape the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports pectin setting.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils that give the marmalade a fragrant citrus note.

The step that matters

Boil quickly while stirring until it thickens. Once the sugar is in, the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pot and turn bitter. Constant stirring and a brisk boil evaporate water and concentrate the pectin and sugar so the marmalade sets rather than stays runny.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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