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Dessert

Peach Preserves

A sweet preserve made by boiling peaches with sugar and water, then repeated until fruit is clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Peel the peaches carefully and remove the pits.

  2. Boil the pits in water, adding more as it evaporates to maintain the ratio.

  3. Remove the pits and add the sugar to the water.

  4. Boil until the scum ceases to rise.

Cook the peaches

  1. Add the peaches a small quantity at a time.

  2. Cook slowly for about ten minutes.

  3. Skim the mixture into a jar.

  4. Repeat the process until all peaches are added.

  5. Pour the boiling syrup over the peaches.

Rest and repeat

  1. The next day, drain off the syrup.

  2. Boil the syrup for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the syrup back over the peaches.

  4. Repeat daily until the fruit looks clear.

Store

  1. Store the preserves in small jars and secure with paper, or seal in cans immediately after the first boiling.

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. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit that forms the body of the preserves.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at this high concentration, helps preserve it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup and repeating daily. Sugar must be dissolved and boiled to a high concentration so the fruit is preserved. Repeated boiling and resting over several days lets syrup penetrate the fruit gradually, so the peaches clear rather than collapse.

“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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