Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Marmalade

A preserve made from rhubarb and pineapple with sugar, simmered and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rhubarb Marmalade

Why it works: Rhubarb and pineapple share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 56 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rhubarb Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Slice the pineapple very thin and remove the core.

  2. Peel the rhubarb and cut it into small pieces.

Cook the pineapple

  1. Add half the quantity of sugar to the pineapple and simmer slowly until tender.

Macerate the rhubarb

  1. Add equal quantities of sugar to the rhubarb and let it stand overnight.

Finish the marmalade

  1. Boil the rhubarb and pineapple together for 20 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rhubarb + pineappletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavour and body that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Pineapple
Adds sweetness and a tropical aroma, and softens to become part of the jam's texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit, draws out moisture, and helps the marmalade thicken and set when boiled.

The step that matters

Boil the rhubarb and pineapple together for 20 minutes. Once the fruit is combined, boiling concentrates the sugar and pectin as water evaporates. Boiling too briefly leaves the marmalade runny, while overboiling can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Rhubarb PieRhubarb Pie152 recipesPineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipes