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Crabapple and Peach Jelly

A jelly made from crabapples and peach syrup, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Crabapple and Peach Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Remove the stems and cut the crabapples into pieces.

  2. Place the crabapples in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  3. Cook until the crabapples are very soft.

  4. Pour the mixture into a flannel jelly bag and hang it up overnight to drain.

Make the jelly

  1. In the morning, measure the juice and use 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.

  2. Put the juice in a pot and bring it to a boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in the sugar constantly until it dissolves.

  4. Add the heated peach syrup and boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and pour into jelly glasses.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Peach + syruptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabapples
Provide the fruit flavour and natural pectin that help the jelly set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it set and keep.
Peach syrup
Adds peach flavour and sweetness to the crabapple juice.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice before adding sugar. Boiling the juice for 20 minutes concentrates it and lets pectin and acid work before the sugar goes in. Stirring the sugar in until fully dissolved prevents grainy jelly and keeps the sugar from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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