Skip to main content
Dessert

To Dry Plums

A method for drying plums by boiling, sugaring, and oven drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Dry Plums

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the plums

  1. Choose fine plums.

  2. Prick the plums well with a fine needle.

  3. Place the plums in a flat pan and fill the pan with water.

  4. Heat the pan on a very slow fire, ensuring the skin does not come off.

  5. Once tender, remove the plums.

  6. Weigh the plums.

Sugar and bake

  1. For every pound of fruit, add a pound of sugar.

  2. Strew a little sugar at the bottom of a large flat pan.

  3. Arrange the plums in rows.

  4. Sprinkle sugar over each layer.

  5. Cover the plums with the remaining sugar.

  6. Place the pan in a 300°F (150°C) oven overnight.

  7. Increase the heat the next day.

  8. Let them cool.

Dry the plums

  1. Return the plums to a cool oven.

  2. Turn the plums daily for four days.

  3. Drain the syrup.

  4. Place the plums on plates to dry before the fire or in the sun.

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
Their flesh softens and their skin concentrates flavor as water is driven off over the long cook.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and preserves it while adding sweetness and a chewy, glossy texture.

The step that matters

Heating the plums on a very slow fire. Heat that is too high splits the skin and breaks down the fruit before it becomes tender. Gentle, slow heat softens the flesh while keeping the skins intact, so the plums hold their shape through sugaring and drying.

“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.

You might also like

Mixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes