Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Jellies and Jams
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the fruit
Use a porcelain or bright brass kettle.
Remove the fruit immediately after cooking.
Place the fruit in the kettle with just enough water to prevent burning.
Stir often and heat until thoroughly scalded.
For a slower method, place fruit in a stone jar in a kettle of tepid water.
Boil until softened, stirring frequently.
Extract the juice
Strain the juice through a strong, coarse flannel or cotton bag wrung out of hot water.
Squeeze the bag as it cools.
Cut larger fruits like apples and quinces into pieces, remove defective cores, and cover with water.
Boil gently until tender, then drain for 3–4 hours or overnight.
Make no more than 2–3 pints of jelly at a time.
Use equal measures of juice and sugar.
Make the jelly
Boil the juice rapidly for 10 minutes.
Skim the surface.
Add sugar.
Boil for another 10 minutes.
Spread sugar in a large pan in the oven, stirring often.
Boil juice for 20 minutes.
Add hot sugar.
Let boil once.
Pour into jelly glasses.
Drop a little jelly in cold water.
If it sinks, it's done; if it remains rounded on a saucer, it's finished.
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.
-
Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
-
Grape + appletop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,659 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
-
Grape + quincetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together96 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
-
Currant + appletop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,918 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
-
Currant + quincetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together91 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fruit
- Natural pectin and acid help the juice gel into a firm jelly when boiled with sugar.
- Refined or granulated sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, with heat and acid, helps it set and keeps it stable.
The step that matters
Testing for the set. Jelly sets only once enough water has boiled off and the pectin, acid and sugar reach the right balance. Testing a drop in cold water or on a saucer shows whether it is ready, so the cook avoids a runny jelly or one that turns hard.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, apple, quince, sugar):
- Pearfits better
- Plumfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against grape, apple, quince, 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.
More jellies and jams recipes
You might also like
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Quince Jelly131 recipes
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.