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Dessert

Plum Jam

A sweet preserve made by cooking plums with sugar and water until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Combine the plums and water in a pot and bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Remove the plums with a skimmer.

  3. Peel and pit the plums.

  4. Return the skins and pits to the pot and boil for 20 minutes.

Make the syrup

  1. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot with the sugar.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

Finish the jam

  1. Add the plums back in and cook for about 30 minutes, or until thickened.

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 flavour and body, and their skins and pits add natural pectin that helps the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it concentrates during cooking, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Cooking until thickened. Jam sets as pectin, acid and sugar concentrate when water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and make it stiff once cooled.

“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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