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Dessert

Almack Preserve

A preserve made from split plums, apples, and pears boiled with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almack Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Make the preserve

  1. Place the plums, apples, and pears in a pan.

  2. Boil the fruit without adding water until well blended.

  3. Remove the stones.

  4. Stir in the sugar.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into wide shallow pots.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Cut into slices for use.

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 + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

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

  2. Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Plum + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

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

  4. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 body and natural pectin that helps the preserve thicken.
Apples
Add pectin and body, helping the preserve set as it cools.
Pears
Contribute soft fruit pulp and mild sweetness to the blended texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, with long boiling, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Boil the fruit without adding water until well blended. Fruit releases its own juice as it heats, so without added water it can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring keeps it from sticking and lets the pieces break down evenly into a smooth mass.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, pear, sugar):

  1. Plumthe original
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Quincefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, pear, sugar. 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.

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