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 Can Berries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pick over the fruit carefully.
Heat the fruit slowly in a large kettle until boiling.
If there is excess juice, dip it out with a cup and save it for jelly.
Leave the berries almost dry before adding sugar.
Add sugar in the proportion of 1 tablespoon per quart of fruit.
Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.
Fill the cans
Put the hot mixture into well-heated cans.
In a boiler, place a piece of wood at the bottom to prevent cans from breaking.
Fill the cans with the carefully picked fruit.
Add sugar to each can to sweeten for serving.
Add enough water to the boiler to come nearly to the top of the cans.
Boil the water for half an hour.
Remove two cans; if the fruit has settled, fill them with fruit from the other cans.
Seal the cans tightly.
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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and body of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it once sealed.
- Raspberries
- Add tart, aromatic flavour and colour to the mixture.
- Blackberries
- Contribute deep colour and a tart, concentrated fruit flavour.
The step that matters
Remove excess juice and leave the berries almost dry before adding sugar. Too much free liquid dilutes the sugar and fruit, so the sugar does not sweeten or thicken evenly and the fruit can spoil more easily in the can.
“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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