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Dessert

Canned Fruits

A method for preserving peaches, pears, quinces, cherries, and plums in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Canned Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Skin, halve, and remove seeds from peaches, pears, and quinces. Remove stones from cherries and leave them in plums.

  2. In a preserving kettle, combine sugar and a lot of water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the fruit to the boiling syrup and cook until tender.

Heat the jars

  1. Prepare a kettle of hot water and a dipper of hot water.

  2. Plunge a glass jar into the hot water.

  3. Drop the metallic top into the dipper of hot water.

  4. Ensure the jar is heated inside and out to prevent breaking.

  5. Pour the hot water from the jar into the kettle.

Fill and seal

  1. Stand the jar in hot water and fill it with hot fruit and syrup to the brim.

  2. Take the hot cover from the dipper and screw it on tightly.

  3. Turn the jar upside down briefly to check the seal.

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. Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

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

  3. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

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

  5. Quince + plumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 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

Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, with water, forms the syrup that fills the jar.
Peaches
Provide the main fruit, softening and taking on flavor as they cook in the syrup.
Pears
Provide the main fruit, softening as they cook in the syrup.
Quinces
Provide the main fruit, which becomes tender when cooked in the syrup.

The step that matters

Heating the jar inside and out. A cold or unevenly heated glass jar can crack when hot fruit and syrup are poured in, because sudden temperature differences stress the glass. Heating it fully before filling reduces that risk.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, pear, plum, sugar. 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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