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Dessert

Apple Jam

A sweet preserve made from apple pulp, sugar, lemon rind, and optionally vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,501 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Weigh the apple pulp after extracting the juice.

  2. Pass the pulp through a fine sieve.

Make the jam

  1. Combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 pint of pulp and the grated rind of 1 lemon.

  2. Boil gently until the jam sets when tested on a plate.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with the fruit's acid and pectin, helps it set and keep.
Apple pulp
Supplies the fruit body and natural pectin that lets the jam thicken and set.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aroma from its oils without contributing much liquid.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the jam sets. Sugar and pectin must reach the right concentration to gel. Underboiling leaves the jam runny, while overboiling can darken and toughen it.

Swap the vanilla

The recipe marks vanilla as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, apple, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Vanillathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple, 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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