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To Preserve Purple Plums

A method for preserving purple plums in a brown sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and plum 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 Preserve Purple Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by dissolving the brown sugar in water and clarifying it until clear.

Soak the plums

  1. Pour the boiling syrup over the cleaned plums.

  2. Remove any unsound plums and stems.

  3. Let the plums sit in the syrup for two days.

  4. Drain the syrup.

  5. Reheat the syrup until boiling and skim it.

  6. Pour the syrup over the plums again.

  7. Let the plums sit for another day or two.

Cook and pack

  1. Place the plums in a preserving kettle over low heat.

  2. Simmer gently until the syrup thickens.

  3. Transfer the plums to pots or jars.

  4. Secure them the next day.

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. Sugar + plumtop 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

Brown sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out its moisture.
Purple plums
Provides the fruit, flavor and body of the preserves.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the syrup thickens. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, and a hard boil can scorch the sugar or break the fruit apart before the syrup sets. Low, gentle heat thickens it evenly.

“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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