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 ↓
135 Plum Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Wash the plums in cold water.
Place the plums in a preserving kettle and add water.
Cover the kettle and heat slowly until the fruit is soft.
Turn the fruit into a flannel jelly bag.
Let the fruit drip until dry.
Make the jelly
For each pint of juice, add one pound of sugar.
Bring the juice to a boil.
Stir the sugar into the boiling juice until dissolved.
Boil rapidly for about 25 minutes until it jellies.
Remove scum as it rises.
Fill and set
Roll jelly tumblers in boiling water.
Fill the tumblers with the boiling liquid.
Let the tumblers stand for 24 hours before sealing.
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
- Common blue plums
- Provide the fruit and natural pectin and acid that help the juice set into jelly.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, clear gel when boiled.
The step that matters
Boil rapidly until it jellies. Sugar and pectin set into a gel only at a high enough concentration. Undercooking leaves a runny jelly, while overcooking can make it stiff or cloudy.
“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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