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Preserve

To Preserve Plums or Damsons Whole

This method preserves plums or damsons whole by layering with sugar, covering, and treating with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Preserve Plums or Damsons Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Weigh the fruit and use ¾ pound of crushed sugar for every pound of fruit.

  2. In stone jars, layer the fruit and sugar alternately.

  3. Cover the jars with cloth.

Make the syrup

  1. Bake bread. Place the jars in the oven after the bread is baked.

  2. Allow the oven to cool.

  3. The next day, strain the syrup.

  4. Boil and clarify the syrup.

  5. Pour the clarified syrup over the fruit in glass jars or china pots.

  6. Cover the jars with egg tissue-paper and thick white paper, securing it tightly.

Finish and seal

  1. Alternatively, place the plums in water over low heat until they begin to peel.

  2. Remove the skins.

  3. Put the skinned plums in a jar and cover them with thin syrup.

  4. The next day, boil the syrup.

  5. Add the plums to the boiling syrup.

  6. Boil gently until cold.

  7. Repeat the process, turning the plums in the syrup until nearly cold.

  8. Remove the plums.

  9. Strain the syrup.

  10. Add more sugar.

  11. Skim the syrup.

  12. Return the plums to the syrup.

  13. Boil until clear.

  14. Transfer the plums to jars.

  15. Secure with paper.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Plum + syruptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Plum + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
The whole fruit being preserved, which holds its shape when cooked gently in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as a concentrated syrup, draws water out to help preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil gently and repeat the syrup treatment. Rapid boiling can split the skins and break the plums. Gentle heat and repeated syrup cycles let sugar slowly replace water in the fruit, so it stays whole and clear.

Swap the plum

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, egg. 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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