Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Conserve

A sweet preserve made from plums, sugar, raisins, and orange juice and rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Plum and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove stones from the plums.

Cook

  1. Add the sugar, seeded raisins, orange juice, and chopped orange rind.

  2. Boil the mixture carefully, as it burns easily.

  3. Continue boiling until thick.

Jar

  1. Place into jelly glasses.

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 + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Plum + raisintop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit base and much of the bulk of the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it thickens during boiling, helps it set.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and body to the preserve.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balance the sugar.
Orange rind
Adds aromatic oils that give a citrus fragrance and flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture carefully. Sugar-rich fruit mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pan because the sugar caramelises at high heat. Stirring and moderate heat prevent burning and a bitter taste.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More plum preserve recipes

Green Orange 18Damson 9Mogul 7 See all 25 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes