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Dessert

Plum Jam

A preserve made from ripe plums and sugar, cooked until thick enough to jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 ↓

Plum Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Select nice, well-ripened plums.

  2. Cover the plums with boiling water.

  3. Let them cool.

  4. Drain the water.

Cook the jam

  1. Add the sugar.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring and skimming, until thick enough to jelly when cold.

Pack and store

  1. Pack into stone jars or glass containers.

  2. Store in a dark, cool place.

  3. Check periodically; re-boil if sour.

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
Provide the fruit flavor and most of the jam's body as they break down.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it thickens, helps it set by concentrating the fruit.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly until the jam is thick enough to jelly when cold. Sugar and fruit must reach a concentrated state to set. Stopping too early leaves a runny jam, while cooking too hard can scorch the sugar and dull the flavor. Stirring and skimming keep the mixture even and clear.

“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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