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Modern Cookery

Plums preserved in sugar syrup, baked or boiled, then stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Modern Cookery

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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Prepare a pan of cold water.

Cook

  1. If using the oven, place the plums in a baking dish and sprinkle the sugar on top without shaking it down.

  2. Bake for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. If using the water method, place the plums with a little hay in a pan of cold water and boil gently for about 3 hours.

Rest and store

  1. Leave the plums in the syrup for a few days to absorb the sugar.

  2. When ready to store, tie a bladder over the necks of jars or bottles and secure with paper or cork.

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 itself, which softens and holds its shape while cooking slowly in syrup.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and forms a syrup that helps preserve it and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake for 4 to 5 hours at a low oven temperature. Slow, gentle heat lets the sugar draw moisture from the plums and thicken the syrup while the fruit stays whole. Higher heat would risk scorching the sugar before the fruit is cooked through.

“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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