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 ↓
To Preserve Fruit for Tarts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the jars
Place them in small jars that hold 1 pound each.
Sprinkle 6 oz of pounded sugar over each jar.
Cover each jar with 2 tied bladders.
Cook and store
Set the jars in a large pot of water up to the neck.
Boil gently for 3 hours.
Store the jars in a dry place.
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
- Cherries, plums, or apples
- Provide the fruit that becomes the preserved filling for tarts.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out moisture and limiting spoilage.
The step that matters
Boil gently for 3 hours. Gentle heat keeps the water at a steady simmer around the jars, so the fruit cooks through and the seal stays intact. A hard, rapid boil can crack jars or force water in.
“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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