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Plum and Pear Jam, Without Sugar

A jam made from pears and plums boiled with cider and cloves, without added sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum and Pear Jam, Without Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and stone the pears and plums.

Cook the jam

  1. Combine the fruit, cider, and powdered cloves in a preserving pan.

  2. Boil the mixture gently, stirring constantly, until it thickens and becomes smooth. Be careful to prevent it from burning to the bottom of the pan.

Jar and store

  1. Pour the jam into jars, cover with brandied paper and bladder, and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

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

  2. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Plum + cidertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Pear + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the bulk of the fruit and body for the jam as they break down.
Plums
Add fruit flavour and natural pectin that helps the jam set.
Good cider
Adds liquid and a tart, fruity flavour while the fruit softens.
Powdered cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the jam.

The step that matters

Stirring while the jam boils gently. Sugar-free fruit mixtures scorch easily on the base of the pan as the water evaporates and the sugars caramelise. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the jam from burning while it thickens.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, plum, cider):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, plum, cider. 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.

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