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Dessert

Jam

Jam is a sweet preserve made by cooking fruit with sugar and lemon juice until thick.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Jam

Timeabout an hour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Clean the fruit, removing stones, leaves, and other inedible parts, and wash it. If the fruit is not a small berry, cut it into small pieces.

  2. Crush the fruit, sprinkle with lemon juice and butter, and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a sufficiently large cooking pot (a copper pot is traditional, but any pot will do).

Cook the jam

  1. Bring the mixture slowly to a rolling boil, stirring regularly; pour in sugar and add pectin if needed.

  2. Boil the mixture for about an hour, checking for thickness by dropping a small amount onto a cold plate; it should be sticky and not runny.

Jar and serve

  1. Sterilize glass flasks or containers by boiling them in water.

  2. Pour the jam rapidly into the still-hot containers.

  3. Seal the containers with lids.

  4. Turn the containers upside-down to expel air bubbles.

  5. (Optional) Pour molten paraffin on top of the jam and seal with paper held by a rubber band.

  6. Serve with bread, toast, English muffins, or pancakes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

598Calories
10 gProtein
15 gFat
122 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cherry1 cup (138g)87
Blueberry1 cup (148g)84
Raspberry1 cup (123g)64
Blackberry1 cup (144g)62
Peach1 medium (150g)59
Strawberry1 cup (152g)49
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Plum1 medium (66g)30
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Fruitnot in our table0
Pectinnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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 + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Peach + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

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

  3. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Plum + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together710 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft fleshy fruit
Provides the bulk, flavour and natural pectin that help the jam thicken.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the jam and, at high concentration, helps it set and keeps it preserved.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps pectin set and brightens the fruit flavour.
Butter
Reduces foaming while the mixture boils.

The step that matters

Judging when the jam is thick enough. Jam sets only when enough sugar and pectin are concentrated by boiling off water and the acid lets the pectin form a gel. Stopping too early leaves it runny; boiling too long can make it stiff or scorch it.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, plum, butter, 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.

More jam recipes

Raspberry 204Gooseberry 171Strawberry 161Cherry 110Rhubarb 107Apricot 90 See all 15 →

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