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 ↓
Plum Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice from the plums and rub the pulp through a colander.
Add an equal amount of sugar to the pulp and boil for twenty minutes.
Pour into jars and seal like jelly.
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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit pulp and natural pectin that give the marmalade its body and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps thicken and preserve the marmalade as it boils.
The step that matters
Boiling the pulp with sugar. Sugar and fruit must boil long enough to reach a concentration where the pectin sets. Too short a boil leaves the marmalade runny and more prone to spoiling, so the cook should check that it thickens before jarring.
“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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