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
Extract the juice
Fill a preserving kettle with apples and cover with water.
Boil until the apples are very soft.
Drain the water through a cloth.
Make the jelly
For each pint of liquid, add 1 pound of white sugar.
Bring the mixture to a boil before adding the sugar.
Boil for five minutes.
Pour and set
Pour into glasses or small jars and cover with thick paper when cold.
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.
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Apples
- Provide pectin and acid, which help the jelly set.
- White sugar
- Helps the jelly set and acts as a preservative.
The step that matters
Boil for five minutes. The mixture needs a rolling boil with sugar and acid so the pectin can form a gel. If it boils too weakly, the jelly may stay runny when it cools.
“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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