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Dessert

Damson Plum Jam

A jam made from fresh ripe damson plums and sugar, boiled and preserved in glass jars.

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 ↓

Damson Plum Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Stone the plums.

Make the jam

  1. Boil the plums in a preserving kettle for 40 minutes, skimming carefully.

  2. Add ¾ pound of sugar for every pound of plums and boil for 15 minutes.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour into small glasses or jam pots.

  2. Cover with papers dipped in alcohol when cold, and paste stiff paper on the outside.

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

Damson plums
Provide the fruit, pectin and tartness that form the jam's body and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep as it sets.

The step that matters

Skimming while the plums boil. Foam rises as the fruit cooks and can cloud the jam or carry impurities into the set. Skimming carefully keeps the jam clear and clean-tasting before the sugar is added.

“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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