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Magnum Donum Plums

Preserved plums simmered in syrup and boiled until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and plum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Magnum Donum Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Prick the plums with a needle to prevent bursting.

  2. Simmer the plums gently in a thin syrup.

  3. Transfer the plums to a bowl and pour the syrup over them.

  4. Let the plums sit for three days.

Finish the preserves

  1. Make a syrup with 3 pounds of sugar and just enough water to moisten the sugar lumps.

  2. Boil the plums in the fresh syrup until they are clear.

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 + plumtop 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 softens, holds its shape and becomes clear in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit and thicken the syrup.

The step that matters

Pricking the plums before simmering. Pricking lets the syrup penetrate the skin and flesh evenly and lets steam escape, which helps prevent the skins from bursting during heating.

“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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