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Dessert

Plum Jelly

A preserved plum preserve made with brown sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Prepare wild plums as you would for grape jelly.

Make the spiced syrup

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and brown sugar.

  2. Tie the spices in a bag and add to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture, skimming off any foam.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the plums and cook until they are clear.

  2. Carefully remove the plums and place them in a jar.

  3. Boil the syrup until thick, then pour over the plums.

  4. Seal the jar.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + cassiatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild plums
Provide the fruit flavor and pectin-bearing body of the preserve.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the preserve and thickens the syrup as it boils down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives a tangy finish.
Mixed whole spices
Infuse warm, aromatic flavor into the syrup without clouding it.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar and fruit pectin set only at a sufficient concentration. Boiling the syrup long enough drives off water so it thickens and holds its shape once cooled, while under-boiling leaves a runny result.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cassia, allspice, clove):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cassia, allspice, clove. 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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