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Dessert

Canned Plums

A method for preserving plums in syrup by canning.

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 ↓

Canned Plums

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the plums.

  2. Pack them in hot jars.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil together 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar for 10 minutes to make syrup.

  2. Pour the syrup over the plums.

Bake

  1. Lay the covers on the jars loosely.

  2. Place the jars in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the plums are soft, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the jars from the oven.

Finish

  1. Use a silver knife to remove air bubbles from the jars.

  2. Refill the jars with cooked plums to overflowing.

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
Fruit that softens in the oven and fills the jars with its flesh and juice.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and gives the syrup body and flavour.

The step that matters

Removing air bubbles with a silver knife. Trapped air pockets leave gaps between the fruit and the syrup, so the jar is not filled evenly and the level drops as the contents settle. Refilling with cooked plums to overflowing then tops up the space the bubbles left.

“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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