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Dessert

Prunes Au Sec. — Dried Plums

A method of drying plums by boiling, sugaring, and oven‑drying for twelve days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Prunes Au Sec. — Dried Plums

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Peel and split the plums.

  2. Place them in a large saucepan filled with fresh spring water.

  3. Heat over low heat, ensuring the plums do not crack.

  4. Remove the plums from heat.

Sugar and soak

  1. Measure ½ cup of powdered sugar for each pound of plums.

  2. Layer some sugar at the bottom of a large bowl.

  3. Place the plums on top of the sugar.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the plums.

  5. Leave them overnight in a warm place.

  6. Warm the plums again over moderate heat.

Dry and pack

  1. Place the plums in a cool oven for twelve days.

  2. Turn the plums twice a day.

  3. Remove the plums from syrup.

  4. Dry the plums.

  5. Arrange the plums in boxes.

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, sweetened and dried into the finished product.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the plums and draws moisture out of the fruit through osmosis, helping preserve them.

The step that matters

Heating the plums gently so they do not crack. Heating over low heat keeps the skins intact. Cracked skins let water and sugar penetrate unevenly and can cause the fruit to break down during the long soak and drying.

“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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