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Dessert

Blackberry and Apple Jam

A jam made from blackberries, sliced apples, lemon, and sugar, boiled until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Blackberry and Apple Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick over the blackberries and weigh them.

  2. For each pound of blackberries, add ½ pound of sliced apple.

  3. For every 6 pounds of blackberries, add 1 very thinly sliced lemon.

  4. Add an equal weight of sugar to the fruit.

Cook the jam

  1. Boil the fruit steadily for nearly 30 minutes.

  2. Gradually add the sugar.

  3. Boil for about 20 minutes.

  4. The berries should feel soft and mashy when done.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and pectin-bearing body for the jam.
Sliced apple
Adds natural pectin that helps the jam thicken and set.
Lemon
Adds acidity that supports pectin setting and brightens the fruit flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Boiling the fruit and adding the sugar. Boiling drives off water so the jam concentrates and thickens. Adding sugar gradually while the fruit boils helps it dissolve without scorching, and the pectin, acid and sugar together allow the jam to set. Stop when the berries feel soft and mashy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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.

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