Why it works: Sugar and plum 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 ↓
Canning Fruit
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil sugar and water until you have a rich syrup, then let it cool.
Pack the jars
Pack jars full of raw fruit.
Fill jars with the cold syrup.
Put on covers and screws, without rubber rings.
Place jars in cold water up to their necks, using straw or chips to prevent touching.
Heat and seal
Boil water for 15 minutes.
Have hot syrup ready to fill jars.
Put on rubber rings and screw tightly.
Store
Store in a cool, dark 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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Sugar + plumtop 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, in a dense syrup, helps preserve it by holding back spoilage-causing water.
- Raw strawberries, raspberries, or plums
- Supplies the main flavour, aroma and soft texture of the preserved fruit.
The step that matters
Putting on the rubber rings and screwing the lids tight. The rings and tight lids must be added only after the hot syrup is in. As the jar cools, the contents contract and draw the lid down, creating a vacuum seal that keeps air and spoilage microbes out.
“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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