Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Conserve

A sweet preserve made from plums, sugar, oranges, raisins, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Plum and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil the plums and remove the pits.

  2. Peel the oranges and grate the rind of two of them.

Cook the preserve

  1. Combine the plums, orange rind, raisins, and nuts in a pot and boil together.

  2. Add the sugar and continue boiling until thick.

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 + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Plum + raisintop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit bulk, pectin, and tart flavor that forms the preserve's body.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it boils, thickens it and helps it keep.
Oranges
Contribute bright citrus aroma and acidity from the grated rind to balance the sweetness.
Seedless raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the preserve.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a contrasting texture against the soft, jammy fruit.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Sugar and fruit must be cooked long enough for water to evaporate and pectin to set; stopping early leaves a runny preserve, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and make it stiff.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, orange, raisin. 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.

More plum preserve recipes

Green Orange 18Damson 9Mogul 7 See all 25 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes