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Dessert

Plum Butter

A sweet preserve made by cooking plums with sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Cook the plums until soft.

  2. Mash the plums through a colander to remove seeds.

Make the butter

  1. Combine 4 cups of plum pulp with 4 cups of sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Add flavoring if desired, but it's better without.

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

Plums
Provide the fruit pulp, flavor, and natural pectin that help the butter thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the mixture boils down, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. The butter sets as water evaporates and the sugar and fruit pectin concentrate. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and make it stiff once cooled.

“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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