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Preserve

To Preserve Fruit Whole, Without Sugar

A method for preserving plums, green grapes, cherries, and gooseberries whole in jars without sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Preserve Fruit Whole, Without Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and pack

  1. Wipe the plums or remove the stems from the cherries and gooseberries.

  2. Pack the fruit tightly in glass jars without bruising.

Cook in water

  1. Screw on the tops tightly and place the jars in a boiler of cold water, covering them.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and watch the jars until the fruit is cooked.

  3. Remove jars when the skins of the plums or cherries split or the gooseberries turn yellow.

Finish and make syrup

  1. Take off the jar tops and fill with fast-boiling water from the kettle.

  2. Quickly screw the tops back on and let cool, tightening again when cold.

  3. For syrup, boil 5 cups of sugar with 6 cups of water for 10 minutes.

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
Fruit that softens and splits as it cooks, giving the preserve its body and juice.
Green-gages
Fruit that softens in gentle heat, holding its shape until the skins split.
Cherries
Fruit whose skins split as it cooks, releasing juice into the jar.
Gooseberries
Fruit that turns yellow as it cooks, signalling it is ready to remove.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and adds body to the liquid surrounding the fruit.

The step that matters

Remove the jars as soon as the skins split or the gooseberries turn yellow. Fruit left in hot water keeps cooking, so it becomes soft and mushy and loses its shape. Removing it at the first clear sign of doneness keeps the fruit whole and firm.

“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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