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Dessert

Spiced Plums or Damsons

A preserve of damsons or plums steeped in a spiced vinegar‑sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Plums or Damsons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine vinegar and sugar in a large pot, then add whole mace, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Boil the mixture to create a syrup.

Steep the damsons

  1. Wash the damsons and place them in a large vessel.

  2. Pour the syrup over the damsons, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Repeat this process for three days.

Jar and seal

  1. On the last day, place the damsons in jars, pour the syrup over them, and seal the jars while hot.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + plumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Damsons or plums
Provide the fruit and its flavour, which the syrup gradually soaks into over the days.
White sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at this high concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the preserve stable.

The step that matters

Keeping the damsons fully covered by syrup. Fruit exposed above the liquid can spoil or mould, because air and surface moisture let microbes grow. Pouring syrup over the fruit each day keeps it submerged and sealed from air.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove, plum):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove, plum. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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