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Preserved Plums
Procure some full-grown, quite ripe plums, prick and place them in a saucepan of cold water over the fire; take off immediately when the water is on the point of boiling, drain, put them into clarified sugar, boil thoroughly and allow them to settle and boil once more. If they shrink, and do not take the sugar, prick them again without taking them from the syrup and boil again; skim the syrup and remove the pan from the fire, allowing it to stand over night. The following day add to the fruit and syrup in the pan some sugar boiled to the blow degree and boil them once more, place in the stove and let them stand there all night. The following day drain the plums from the syrup, sprinkle them with a little powdered sugar, and dry in the stove.
This is confectionery rather than jam: a multi-day candying of whole plums that ends with dried, sugar-dusted fruit, closer to a French prune confite than to anything in a jar. Nothing in it is difficult, but the vocabulary is nineteenth-century pastry-kitchen shorthand.
- The hinge: gradual sugarThe whole method exists to raise the sugar concentration inside the fruit in stages, so the flesh does not collapse or shrivel. Rushing it into heavy syrup is what causes the shrinking the recipe warns about; the repeated pricking and overnight rests are the point, not optional refinements.
- "Blow degree"An older sugar-boiling stage, also called souffl he-240F depending on which nineteenth-century table you follow — above thread and pearl, below feather and ball. It was judged by blowing through a skimmer dipped in the syrup until bubbles formed; a candy thermometer is the simplest modern substitute.
- "Clarified sugar"A sugar syrup boiled with a little water and cleared of scum, traditionally with egg white; roughly 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, brought to a boil and skimmed. Modern granulated sugar is already pure, so skimming alone is enough.
- "The stove"Not the burner. In a professional kitchen of this period a drying stove or hot closet held a very low steady heat, perhaps 120–150F. A modern oven set to its lowest setting with the door propped, or a dehydrator, does the same work.
- Blanching"Take off immediately when the water is on the point of boiling" is literal. The plums are only heated enough to soften the skin so syrup can enter; a true boil splits them and you get stewed fruit.
- PrickingUse a clean needle or the tines of a fork and go through the skin in several places, deep enough to reach the flesh. This is what lets the syrup in and steam out; unpricked plums burst.
- Timings"Boil thoroughly" and "boil once more" mean a few minutes at a simmer each time, not a long reduction. Allow three days from start to finish, most of it unattended.
- Yield and keepingThe original gives no quantity. Two pounds of plums and about two pounds of sugar makes a modest batch. Once thoroughly dry the plums keep for months in a tin between layers of parchment; if they are still tacky they will mould.
Candying whole fruit in ascending strengths of syrup is one of the oldest branches of European confectionery, and by the time this book appeared it was standard training for a hotel pastry department — the syrup degrees belong to the French professional canon codified in the nineteenth century by writers such as Carême and Gouffé. Preserved plums, prunes and greengages were a staple of the petits fours and dessert-service trays, and the same technique produced the glacé fruit that went into cakes and ices. The recipe's assumption of a drying stove available overnight is a reminder that this is a hotel kitchen's book: it takes for granted a room that never fully cools and staff to check on the pans.