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Dessert

Apricot Jam

A sweet preserve made from ripe apricots, kernels, powdered sugar, apple jelly, and covered with brandied paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Apricot Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the skins from the apricots and mash them in a copper preserving pan with the bruised kernels.

  2. Heat the mixture over the fire, stirring continuously.

  3. Pass the mixture through a colander and boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Make the jam

  1. Add ¾ cup of powdered sugar for every pound of apricots and boil for 30 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Pot and cover

  1. Once done, pour into pans and let cool.

  2. Add apple jelly on top and cover with brandied paper.

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

Ripe apricots
Provide the fruit flavor and most of the bulk of the jam.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken as the mixture boils down.
Bruised kernels
Add a subtle nutty, almond-like aroma to the fruit.
Apple jelly
Adds pectin to help the jam set firmly.

The step that matters

Boiling with the sugar. Once the sugar is added, the mixture is thick and concentrated and can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and prevents burning while the jam reaches a proper set.

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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