Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Conserve

A preserve made from plums, peaches, orange pulp, and sugar, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Plum and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine the plums, peaches, minced orange pulp, and grated orange rinds in a large pot.

  2. Stir in the granulated sugar and strained honey.

Cook and seal

  1. Boil the mixture slowly until it thickens.

  2. Seal the conserve while hot.

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 + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Peach + honeytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Plum + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit body and natural pectin that helps the preserve set.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, as water evaporates, helps the mixture thicken and preserve.
Strained honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, keeping the finished preserve soft and smooth.
Peaches
Add soft body and sweet, fruity flavor to the preserve.
Oranges
Add acidity and bright aroma, and their pith supplies extra pectin.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until it thickens. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates during the boil. Stopping too early leaves the preserve runny, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and make it stiff.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, peach, sugar, honey):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, peach, sugar, honey. 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.

More plum preserve recipes

Green Orange 18Damson 9Mogul 7 See all 25 →

You might also like

Mixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes