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Dessert

Plum Bungo

A plum preserve made with plums, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Plum Bungo

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine plums, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice in a large pot.

  2. Cook over low heat for 2½ to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. Once cooked, stir in the vinegar.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit base and bulk, softening into a thick, jam-like mass as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as water evaporates, concentrates into a syrup that helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweet fruit flavor and helps preserve the finished mixture.
Ground cloves
Add a warm, pungent spice aroma that deepens the fruit flavor.
Ground cinnamon
Adds a sweet, woody aroma that complements the plums and sugar.
Ground allspice
Adds a blended warm aroma that rounds out the spice mix.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat. Plums and sugar are prone to scorching on the bottom of the pot over long cooking. Low heat and frequent stirring let water evaporate and the fruit break down evenly without the sugar burning, which would give a bitter taste.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar. 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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