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 Jell
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pick over and wash the plums.
Place the plums in a pot and cover with water.
Cook without stirring until the plums crack open and are soft enough for the juice to run out.
Extract the juice
Pour the mixture into a bag and drain the juice.
Make the jelly
Add 1 pint of sugar for each pint of juice and cook until it jells, about 20 minutes.
You can cook 1½ pints or 2 quarts at a time.
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
- Supply the juice, natural pectin and tartness that allow the jelly to set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Cook until the jelly sets. Undercooked jelly stays runny because the pectin and sugar have not concentrated enough to form a gel. Overcooking can make it stiff and grainy, so watch for the set rather than relying only on time.
“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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