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Dessert

Jujube Paste

A sweet paste made from sugar, gum arabic, water, lemon essence, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Jujube Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine sugar, gum arabic, and water in a bowl.

  2. Add lemon essence and cochineal.

  3. Let the mixture sit in a warm place until the gum dissolves.

Cook and shape

  1. Cook the mixture until thick, testing in cold water for consistency.

  2. Pour into buttered pans to a thickness of ⅛ inch.

  3. Once cool, roll the jujube paste into a scroll.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it cooks thick, body for the paste.
Gum arabic
Dissolves to give the paste its gel-like body and chewy structure.
Water
Dissolves the sugar and gum so the mixture can thicken evenly.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until thick, testing in cold water for consistency.. Sugar concentration determines how firm the paste sets. Undercooked mixture stays soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle once cool.

“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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