To Dry Imperatrice Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Put plums into jars or wide-necked bottles with half a pound of good sugar, rolled or pounded, to twice the weight of fruit.
The sugar should be put in after the fruit, without being shaken down; it will then dissolve gradually, and be absorbed by it equally.
Cook
Set them into a very cool oven for four or five hours; or, if more convenient, place them, with a little hay between them, in a pan of cold water and boil them gently for rather more than three hours.
Tie a bladder over the necks of the jars or bottles before they are placed in the pan of water, and fasten two or three folds of paper over the former, or cork the bottles when the fruit is to be baked.
Finish
Leave them in the syrup for a few days, and finish them as directed for the drying of other fruits.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Plums (in the method)
- Provide the fruit that is preserved and softened by the slow heat and syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, as a syrup, draws moisture out to preserve it.
The step that matters
Adding the sugar in layers. Sugar drawn into the fruit slowly, without packing it down, lets it dissolve gradually and spread evenly, so the plums absorb it uniformly rather than in dense patches.
“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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