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Dessert

Plum Jelly

A jelly made from wild plums, soda, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Place wild plums in a pan, sprinkle with soda, and pour hot water over them.

  2. Let the plums stand for a few moments. Stir the mixture.

  3. Remove the plums.

  4. Add just enough water to cover them.

  5. Boil the mixture until the plums are soft.

Make the jelly

  1. Dip out the juice.

  2. Strain the juice through a jelly bag without squeezing.

  3. For each cup of juice, add an equal amount of sugar.

  4. Boil for 8-10 minutes.

  5. Test the jelly by dropping a spoonful on a saucer; if it holds its shape, it is ready.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Wild plums
Provide the fruit, pectin and tart flavour that give the jelly its body and taste.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps the mixture set into a firm jelly when boiled.
Soda
Softens the plum skins so the fruit breaks down during the initial boil.

The step that matters

Testing the set. Jelly sets only once enough sugar and pectin are concentrated by boiling. Stopping too early leaves a runny result, while boiling too long can make it stiff, so the saucer test helps confirm readiness.

“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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