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
Wash the plums and place them in a pot with enough water to prevent burning.
Cook the plums until soft, then mash them through a coarse sieve or colander.
Add half the weight of the plum pulp in sugar, adjusting to taste.
Cook the mixture until it thickens to the consistency of apple butter.
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
- Common red plums
- Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and flavour of the butter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps thicken the butter as it cooks down.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture until it thickens. Sugar and fruit pulp thicken as water evaporates and sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce, while cooking too long can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot, so stir often near the end.
“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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