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Dessert

Plum Preserves

Preserved plums layered with sugar, baked, then strained and clarified, finished in jars with hot syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 Preserves

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Layer plums and sugar in a stone jar.

  2. Place the jars in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the oven cools.

  3. If prepared at tea time, leave them until morning.

Make the syrup and jar

  1. Strain the juice from the plums, then boil and clarify it.

  2. Carefully transfer the fruit to glass or china jars.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the fruit and cover with wax paper, tissue paper, or bladder tied tightly.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Plums
Supply the fruit flesh and natural juice that becomes the preserve's syrup and body.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and sweetens it, helping the preserve keep well.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the fruit. Sugar must be fully dissolved and the syrup kept hot so it penetrates the fruit evenly and seals well. Covering tightly limits air and mould growth as the preserves cool and set.

“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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