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Crab Apple Jelly

A jelly made from crab apples, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Crab Apple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash crab apples thoroughly, removing blossoms and any decayed parts.

  2. If large, cut them into pieces but do not peel or remove the cores.

  3. Place the fruit in a kettle and nearly cover with cold water.

  4. Cook slowly until soft.

Strain the juice

  1. Drain the mixture into a jelly bag that has been dipped in boiling water.

  2. Do not press the bag to keep the jelly clear.

Make and set the jelly

  1. For every 1 cup of juice, use 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Boil the juice slowly for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Add the sugar and boil for an additional 5 minutes, or until it jells, skimming as necessary.

  4. Pour the jelly into glasses.

  5. Once set, seal with paper and egg white or melted paraffin.

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

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

  2. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  3. Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Crab apples
Provide the fruit juice and natural pectin that make the jelly set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm with the fruit's pectin and acid.

The step that matters

Do not press the jelly bag. Pressing the bag forces fine pulp and solids through the cloth, which makes the finished jelly cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, 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.

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