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 Crabapple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Combine equal parts of plum juice and crabapple juice in a pot.
Add an equal amount of sugar to the juice mixture.
Cook and set
Cook the mixture until it reaches a jelly consistency.
Pour into jelly molds and let cool.
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
- Crabapple juice
- Provides natural pectin and tartness, which help the jelly set and balance sweetness.
- Plum juice
- Supplies the main fruit flavor and liquid base, with some pectin to aid setting.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with pectin and acid, helps form the gel as the mixture thickens.
The step that matters
Cooking to jelly consistency. Pectin, acid and sugar only form a firm gel when the mixture is concentrated enough. Stopping too early leaves the jelly runny, while cooking too long makes it stiff and dull.
“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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