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Dessert

Apricot Jam

A sweet preserve made from ripe apricots, sugar, apricot kernels, apple jelly, and brandy 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 pulp

  1. Cut the apricots into pieces and remove the stones.

  2. Mash the apricots in a large copper preserving pan over medium heat, mashing continuously.

  3. Force the mashed apricots through a colander or wire sieve using a pestle.

  4. Return the pulp to the pan and boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Make the jam

  1. For every pound of pulp, add a pound of sugar that has been clarified and boiled to a syrupy consistency.

  2. Add the sugar to the pulp and boil for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in a few blanched apricot kernels.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the jam into pound or half-pound jars, topping with apple jelly.

  2. Seal with a brandy paper and tie a double paper over the jar.

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. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

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

  5. 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 pulp, flavour and natural pectin that set the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.
Apricot kernels (blanched)
Add a subtle almond-like aroma to the finished jam.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar into the pulp. Sugar must be fully dissolved and the mixture kept boiling while stirred constantly so it does not scorch on the base of the pan. Sugar and heat together concentrate the jam and help it set.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, sugar, brandy. 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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