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Spiced Plums

A preserved plum dish made with damson plums, sugar, vinegar, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon simmered for hours.

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 ↓

Spiced Plums

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the plums, sugar, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Add the cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Damson plums
Provide the fruit base, tart flavour, and body of the finished preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and thickens the fruit as its syrup reduces during simmering.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Cloves
Contribute a strong, warm aroma that defines the spiced character of the dish.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that blends clove and cinnamon notes.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Simmering with occasional stirring. Sugar-rich fruit thickens slowly and can scorch on the bottom of the pot during a long simmer. Stirring regularly spreads heat evenly and keeps the mixture from sticking and burning.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, allspice, 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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