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Dessert

Sweet Plums

A preserved plum dessert made by boiling plums in vinegar and sugar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone the damsons or prune plums.

  2. Combine vinegar and brown sugar.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  2. Add the fruit and spices.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

  4. Remove the fruit.

  5. Continue boiling the syrup for a while longer.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat and let cool.

  2. Mix everything together.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons or prune plums
Provides the fruit that softens and flavors the syrup as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, thickening the syrup and helping preserve the fruit.
Ground cloves
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma and spiced flavor to the syrup.
Ground mace
Contributes a delicate, warm aroma and spiced flavor to the syrup.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes a sweet, warm aroma and spiced flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Remove the fruit before boiling the syrup longer. Prolonged boiling breaks fruit down into mush and can make it tough or bitter. Removing it lets the syrup thicken on its own while the fruit keeps its shape and flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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