Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Apple Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Pare and core the apples, then cut them into half‑inch squares or irregular pieces.
Weigh the apple pieces and cover them with an equal weight of granulated sugar.
Set aside for 48 hours.
Cook the jam
Pour off the syrup into a preserving pan.
Bring the pan to a boil.
Add the apple pieces.
Boil slowly without stirring until they are transparent.
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.
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Apples
- Provide the fruit body and pectin that give the jam its structure and set.
- Granulated sugar
- Draws water out of the apples to form a syrup and preserves the jam while sweetening it.
The step that matters
Boil slowly without stirring until the apples are transparent. Stirring breaks the apple pieces apart and makes the jam cloudy and mushy, while gentle boiling lets them soften and become translucent as sugar replaces water in the fruit.
“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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