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Plum Porridge

A warm porridge made from plums, water, sugar, cinnamon, and cold milk, served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Plum Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the plums

  1. Put the plums into a saucepan with water, sugar, and cinnamon.

  2. Boil gently until the mixture becomes a pulp.

  3. Pass the mixture through a colander into a basin.

Finish and serve

  1. In the morning, mix the pulp with cold milk.

  2. Add more sugar if needed and serve with bread.

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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Plums (in the method)
Break down into a pulp that gives the porridge its body and fruity flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the plums.
Cold milk
Adds creaminess and softens the pulp into a smooth, thinner porridge.
Cinnamon
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the mixture becomes a pulp. Gentle heat softens the plums slowly so they break down evenly into a pulp. A hard boil can scorch the sugar on the base of the pan and reduce the fruit unevenly, leaving a burnt taste and lumps.

“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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