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Dessert

Magnum Bonum Plums

Plums preserved in syrup after simmering and boiling.

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 Bonum 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 in fresh syrup

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

  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 body and flavor that the syrup penetrates and sweetens.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, helps preserve it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Boil the plums in the fresh syrup until they are clear. Sugar must penetrate the fruit gradually to replace its water. Over-boiling can split the skins and break the fruit apart, while stopping too early leaves it under-saturated and less preserved.

“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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