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To Dry Imperatrice Plums

Dry Imperatrice plums by sugaring and heating in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Dry Imperatrice Plums

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Place the plums in jars or wide-necked bottles.

  2. Add 1 pound of sugar to the jars without shaking it down.

Bake

  1. Set the jars in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Alternatively, place the jars in a pan of cold water with hay between them and boil gently for about 3 hours.

Rest and cover

  1. Leave the plums in the syrup for a few days.

  2. Cover the jars with a bladder and secure with paper or cork before baking.

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

Imperatrice plums
Provide the fruit flesh and flavour that the sugar preserves.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and forms a syrup that preserves it.

The step that matters

Set the jars in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C). Gentle, low heat lets water leave the plums slowly while they soften and stay whole. Too much heat can burst the fruit, cook it to mush, or scorch the sugar.

“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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