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Spiced Blue Plums

A preserve made from blue plums, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Blue Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the plums, removing the stones if they are freestones.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the plums, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens.

  3. Taste and adjust the sweetness by adding more sugar if desired.

  4. If stones are present, remove them as they rise to the top during cooking.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Blue plums
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that help the preserves thicken as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as water evaporates, helps thicken and preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the fruit flavor.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that pairs with the plums.
Ground cloves
Adds a strong, warm spice aroma to the preserves.

The step that matters

Cooking until the mixture thickens. Preserves set as water evaporates and sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves them runny, while cooking too long makes them stiff and dense. Stirring occasionally helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the plum

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

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

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