Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Blackberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the jam
Combine half of the sugar with the berries in a pot.
Boil for about 20 minutes.
Add the remaining sugar and the lemon juice.
Boil for an additional 30 minutes.
Pot the jam
Pour the jam into sweetmeat pots.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Bramble-berries
- Provide the fruit flavour and pectin that help the jam thicken as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the jam set and keep well.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that supports gelling and brightens the fruit flavour.
The step that matters
Boil for the full time after adding the remaining sugar and lemon juice. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and pectin. Stopping early can leave the jam runny, while cooking too long can make it dull and overly stiff.
“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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