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Dessert

Plum Lozenges, for Dessert

A sweet dessert made from plums and apples boiled with lemon juice and sugar, then cut into lozenges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Lozenges, for Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Place the plums in a jar.

  2. Submerge the plums in boiling water until soft enough to remove the stones.

  3. Soften sliced apples in boiling water until soft enough to remove the stones.

Make the mixture

  1. Transfer the plums and apples to a preserving pan.

  2. Add lemon juice and sugar.

  3. Boil quickly for 45 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Set, dry and store

  1. Pour the mixture onto shallow dishes.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Cut the cooled mixture into lozenges.

  4. Dry the lozenges on a sieve before the fire.

  5. Store the lozenges between sheets of writing paper in a tin box.

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 + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe orleans plums
Provide the main flavour and the fruit pulp that forms the lozenge body.
Apples
Add natural pectin, helping the mixture set firm enough to cut.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it cooks down, helps thicken and preserve the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports setting.

The step that matters

Boiling quickly for 45 minutes while stirring. The thick, sugary mixture can scorch on the base of the pan, so it must be stirred throughout. Long boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and fruit pectin so the mixture sets firm enough to cut into lozenges.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, apple, sugar. 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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