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Dessert

Plums in Brandy

A preserved plum dessert made by boiling plums with sugar, then steeping in brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 168 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plums in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Prick the plums.

  2. Soak the plums in cold water over heat.

  3. When the water boils, skim the plums out.

  4. Place the plums in a pan of cold water.

Make the syrup

  1. Clarify the sugar.

  2. Add the plums.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Let the plums sit for two days.

  5. Drain the plums.

  6. Boil the syrup alone.

  7. Boil the plums again.

  8. Drain the plums the next day.

  9. Boil the syrup down further.

  10. Let it cool.

Bottle and preserve

  1. Place the plums in bottles.

  2. Add enough brandy to cover the fruit.

  3. Stir well.

  4. Strain.

  5. Pour the syrup over the plums.

  6. Cork the bottles tightly.

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 + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
Form the fruit that softens and absorbs the syrup and brandy as it sits.
Sugar
Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
Brandy
Covers the fruit and acts as a preservative alongside the sugar syrup.

The step that matters

Let the plums sit for two days. Repeated soaking and draining lets the sugar and water slowly move in and out of the fruit, so the plums firm and absorb the syrup without splitting. Rushing this leaves the fruit underdeveloped.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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