Skip to main content
Dessert

Plums, Preserved

Preserved plums boiled with sugar syrup, stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Plum and sugar 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 ↓

Plums, Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Boil water and blanch the plums for 1 minute.

  2. If the plums are not fully ripe, simmer them for 2-3 minutes.

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve sugar in a little water.

  2. Skim the mixture.

  3. Boil until almost candy-like.

  4. Add the plums to the syrup.

  5. Boil gently for 15 minutes.

  6. Carefully lift out the plums.

  7. Strain syrup over them.

Rest and finish

  1. Let sit for 2 days.

  2. Boil again until the plums look clear.

  3. Jar the plums and cover them with syrup.

  4. Seal the jars.

  5. Store them in a cool, dry place.

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 + sugartop 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 is softened and preserved in the sugar syrup.
Sugar
Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil again until the plums look clear. Sugar must penetrate the fruit gradually; boiling again after resting lets the syrup concentrate and the plums turn translucent, which helps them keep.

“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.

You might also like

Mixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes