Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
If using damsons, make an incision in them.
Place the plums in a stone jar and cover with a bladder.
Put the jar in a deep pan of water over the fire.
Extract the juice
Boil the water gently until all the juice has come from the fruit.
Strain the juice through a jelly bag.
Make the jelly
Boil the juice with an equal weight of loaf sugar, stirring constantly for about 20 minutes.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sound ripe plums
- Supply the juice, flavour and natural pectin that allow the jelly to set.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the juice and, as it concentrates, helps the jelly thicken and set.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with the sugar. The jelly sets only when sugar and pectin reach a high enough concentration through boiling. Stirring constantly keeps the sugar from scorching on the base of the pan.
“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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