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Dessert

Apple Marmalade

A preserve made from apples, sugar, ginger, and water, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Apple Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Place the apple pieces in a basin of cold water to prevent browning.

  3. Remove the apples from the water and weigh the apples.

  4. Transfer the apples to a deep dish.

  5. Cover the apples with an equal weight of sugar and add ground ginger.

  6. Let the mixture stand for three days.

Make the syrup

  1. Put the apple cores and skins into a preserving pan and cover with water.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and set the liquid aside.

  4. Strain the syrup from the apples into the preserving pan.

  5. Add the juice from the skins.

  6. Boil the syrup for 10 minutes.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the apples.

  2. Boil for 30 to 45 minutes until the apples look transparent.

  3. Transfer the marmalade to jars.

  4. Seal for storage.

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 + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Baking apples
Provide the bulk of the marmalade and, with their pectin, help it set as it cooks.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the apples and, with boiling, thickens the mixture into a preserve.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma that flavours the marmalade.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 to 45 minutes until the apples look transparent. Under-boiling leaves the apples firm and the syrup thin, so the marmalade will not set. Over-boiling can darken and scorch the sugar. Watching for the apples to turn clear shows that the fruit has softened and the sugar has concentrated enough.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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