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Dessert

Canned Plums

Plums preserved with sugar by boiling and jarred.

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 ↓

Canned Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prick the plums to prevent breaking.

  2. Layer the plums and sugar alternately in a preserving kettle.

  3. Let them sit on the back of the stove for 1-2 hours.

Cook and jar

  1. Place the kettle over moderate heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim off any foam and pour the mixture into jars.

  3. Run a silver spoon handle around the inside of the jar to break air bubbles.

  4. Cover and screw down the tops.

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, along with their juice, which dissolves the sugar and forms the syrup.
Sugar
Draws out juice from the plums and acts as a preservative, adding sweetness that balances the fruit's tartness.

The step that matters

Let the plums sit with sugar before heating. Resting the fruit in sugar draws out juice so the sugar dissolves into a syrup before boiling. Heating too early can leave undissolved sugar and uneven texture, and skimming foam keeps the jars clear.

“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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