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Dessert

Preserved Plums

A method for preserving plums in a sugar syrup with optional egg white for clarity.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Preserved Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Cut the plums in half and remove the stones.

  2. Weigh the plums and use 1 pound of sugar for every pound of fruit.

  3. Crack the stones, remove the kernels, and break them into pieces.

  4. Boil the plums and kernels slowly in as little water as possible for about 15 minutes.

  5. Spread the plums on a large dish to cool and strain the liquid.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. The next day, make the syrup by melting the sugar in ½ cup of water and boiling it until clear.

  2. Add the plums and the strained liquid to the syrup and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Transfer the plums to jars and pour the warm juice over them.

  4. Seal the jars with brandy paper once cooled.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + syruptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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 that is softened by cooking and preserved in syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it by drawing out water.
Plum stones and kernels
Add a subtle almond-like aroma to the cooking liquid as they boil with the fruit.
Molasses
Adds dark color, depth of flavor, and some additional sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the plums slowly in little water. Gentle simmering with minimal water softens the fruit and concentrates its juice without scorching. Too much water or rapid boiling dilutes the flavor and can break the fruit apart before the syrup is added.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, egg, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, egg, syrup. 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.

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