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Dessert

Plum Shape

A gelatin set plum dessert stewed with water and sweetened, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Plum Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Pour boiling water over the plums and let them stand until the skins soften, but do not break open.

  2. Pour off the water, cool the plums, then peel and remove the stones, saving all the juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Stew the plums in 1 cup of water until tender, then sweeten to taste.

  3. Stir the hot plum mixture into the soaked gelatine until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream, adding lemon juice or wine if desired.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

  5. Plum + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provides the main fruit flavour and the body of the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the plum liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tart fruit.

The step that matters

Stir the hot plum mixture into the soaked gelatine until well combined. Gelatine only sets evenly when it is fully dispersed through the liquid. Thorough stirring prevents lumps and streaks, so the jelly sets uniformly throughout.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, cream. 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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