Amazing Sugar Plums for Holiday Treats

I think it is time for a new Sugar Plum recipe that will bring dreams without creating nightmares in today’s kitchens! But first an introduction to where sugar plums have been for the past two hundred years.

We’re approaching the 200th anniversary of the publication of A Visit From St. Nicholas. Clement Moore’s charming Christmas poem first made its appearance in the Troy, New York Sentinel newspaper on December 23, 1823. James Madison was president of the United States and the girl who would grow up to be Queen Victoria was just four years old. Perhaps she, too, had “visions of sugar plums” dancing in her head as she slept on Christmas Eve.

So just what is a Sugar Plum? Let’s start with the authentic Sugar Plum of Moore’s time. Sugar plums had been around for centuries and they were world-wide treats. They had just a little to do with fruit, nothing at all to do with plums, and a lot to do with sugar, seeds, nuts, and spices. The 1818 Book of English Trades explained: “Sugar plums or comfits are made of small fruits or cassia, or odoriferous and aromatic roots, &c. incrusted, and covered over with a very hard sugar ordinarily white; but sometimes of other colors. Of these are various kinds, distinguished by various names; some are made of raspberries, others of barberries, melon seeds, pistachios, filberts, almonds, cinnamon, cassia, orange-peel, coriander, aniseed, caraways, &c.”

Although some nineteenth century English cookery books, written for the management and staff of large estate houses, described how to make them, the majority of these sugar plums, or comfits, enjoyed by Clement Moore’s dreaming children and their peers were made by professional confectioners. And they must have been expensive given the painstaking process.

The confectioner poured small quantities of thick sugar syrup over warm seeds or nuts in a gently heated pan. He stirred constantly until each seed was fully coated. This coat dried and then the next was applied. The process was repeated over five days until twenty-five, or more, sugary layers surrounded the tidbit inside. The last layer was often colored green by spinach, red by beets, or yellow by saffron. An experienced confectioner was said to produce 250 pounds of sugar plums a week as he stood—rather like a circus juggler—managing a dozen copper pans suspended from the ceiling constantly swinging over charcoal fires with the sugar plums kept rolling about by the action of the pan.

Industrial Age steam power changed sugar plum making significantly. The whole process from the dribbling of sugar syrup to the constant motion of the pans became mechanized. Now the confectionary factories could turn out two or three tons a week as reported by J. Thompson Gill in the 1890 Complete and Practical Confectioner. Still for all the changes in manufacturing, the sugar plum remained largely the same candy-coated nut or seed until the nineteenth century was coming to an end. Late Victorian era cooks realized that canned pitted plums would be the perfect foil for a revised sugar plum.

By the time the Sugar Plum Fairy danced her first steps at the Moscow debut of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite ballet on December 18, 1892, Victorian homemakers and their cooks had been turning those actual plums into sugar plums. It was a simple process. Small plums, about the size of walnuts, preserved in bottles or cans of heavy syrup became sparkling, yummy, decorations for Christmas trees. A home cook would blot the plum and then roll it in sugar, place the coated fruit to dry overnight on a sugar-strewn baking sheet in front of the low-heat oven. Late-era Victorian holiday stories describe these plums being tied with ribbons, or wrapped in fringed papers, for children, or adults, to cut down from the candle-lit tree.

Of course there were still candy-shop sugar plums, but at the turn of the nineteenth century American home cooks devised an even easier way to achieve sugar coated nuts, primarily almonds, using fondant, a moldable sugar paste. Alice Louise James was one author to describe the process. She set out the simple method in her 1898 book Catering for Two, Comfort and Economy for Small Households. “For the sugar plums, form the fondant around whole nut meats. Dip in granulated sugar and shake violently in a bowl with a few additional spoonfuls of sugar. Almonds are the nuts generally used for this candy.”

Another decade later, the home kitchen meat grinder delivered even more sugar plum options to American kitchens. The cast iron grinder clamped sturdily onto the counter or table. As the cook turned the handle, the screw mechanism below the hopper pushed ingredients through metal plates, extruding them into a finely chopped mass.

In 1916 a reader of one of the country’s leading cooking school magazines American Cookery requested the “Recipe for sugar plums. They are a mixture of nuts, figs, raisins, candied cherries, etc. put together with sugar.” The editor replied that they are “called French Sweets.” Her recipe described putting all the ingredients—dried figs, dates, pecans, candied cherries, and citron “through the food chopper” and then rolling this mixture out onto a sugared board and cutting it into shapes before rolling them in more sugar and storing in a box. This recipe is popular today with cooks using the food processor to convert whole dates, figs, nuts, and more into a sticky mass ready to be formed into balls and coated with sugar.

Now that we’ve surveyed sugar plum history, we have four different kinds before us—the early simple and commercially made comfit of Moore’s time and earlier, the late Victorian whole canned plum version, the almond surrounded by fondant, and the now one-hundred-year old chopped dried fruit and nut balls.

So here are my recipes for two versions of tasty, neat to eat, Sugar Plums. I found roots in the recipes and ingredients of the past—rich, warming spices and luscious dried fruits. I adapted them to the kind of holiday cooking we do today – easy to mix by hand, a treat where children can participate in the creation, and where the finished product can be simple or sophisticated but tasty either way. And can be made ahead. I hope you enjoy making these with your family. These Sugar Plums keep well for a week or more in a sealed container in the refrigerator, and, if you choose to brush them with brandy, they keep equally well with the container on the kitchen counter. I like to form them in a craggy shape. All the better for icing or decorations.

So to quote St. Nicholas, “A Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Wonderful Date Sugar Plums

Recipe by Rae Katherine Eighmey

8 ounces pitted dates or prunes, finely chopped

1/2 cup apple juice concentrate

1/2 cup soft butter 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, either light or dark

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups flour, you might need a little bit more

4 ounces dried currants 4 ounces candied citron, cut to 1/8 inch dice if necessary

For coating before baking:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup finely ground almonds

For brushing just after baking:

1/2 cup brandy or apple juice concentrate

For decorating when cool:

Melted white chocolate

Sprinkles, nuts, or other decorations.

Or Confectioner’s Sugar Icing

1/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla (or other flavoring)

1-2 tablespoons milk

Combine the butter, sugar and flavoring. Add milk a teaspoon at a time until you have a spreading consistency. Add more milk if necessary as the icing may begin to harden.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking sheets, or line with parchment paper, and set aside. Combine the chopped dates and apple juice concentrate in a small pot and simmer on low, stirring frequently, until the dates begin to break down and form a lumpy paste. You may do this step in the microwave on low. Set aside to cool.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the date paste, butter, sugar, and eggs. Mix well. Add the baking soda and spices along with one cup of the flour. Mix well. Stir in the rest of the flour and the currants and citron. Mix well, kneading with your hands to form a smooth, non-sticky dough. Add more flour if necessary.

Combine the granulated sugar and finely chopped nuts in a flat bowl.

Form the sugar plums by taking a ball of dough, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Roll one end to form a taper. Dredge the sugar plum in the nut and sugar mixture and place on the baking sheet, pressing down to make a flat bottomed treat with a pointed top. Smush slightly so that it kind of looks like a mountain. Repeat with all the dough. Bake until just turning light brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately brush with either apple juice concentrate or brandy. Cool on baking rack. Decorate when cool.

Makes about 3 ½ dozen 2-bite treats

Citrus Sugar Plums Recipe

Recipe by Rae Katherine Eighmey

1 6-ounce package dried cranberries, roughly chopped

3 1/2 ounces dried apricots, roughly chopped (half of a 7-ounce package)

1/2 cup orange juice concentrate

1/2 cup soft butter

1 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons lemon juice

finely grated zest of 1 large orange

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 to 1 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup finely chopped pecans

4 cups flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar for coating before baking

For finishing when just removed from oven:

1/2 cup apricot brandy or orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking sheets, or line with parchment paper, and set aside. In a small pot, combine the cranberries and apricots with orange juice concentrate. Simmer, stirring, until the dried fruit soften. Set aside to cool.

In a large mixing bowl combine the cooled fruit, butter, sugar, and eggs. Mix well. Stir in the lemon zest, juice, and orange zest along with the baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, pecans, and one cup of the flour. Stir in the remaining flour one cup at a time, kneading in the last cup until you have a firm non-sticky dough.

Form the sugar plums by taking a ball of dough, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Roll one end to form a taper. Dredge the sugar plum in the sugar and place on the baking sheet, pressing down to make a flat bottomed treat with a pointed top. Smush slightly so that it kind of looks like a mountain. Repeat with all the dough. Bake until just turning light brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately brush with either apple juice concentrate or brandy. Cool on baking rack. Decorate when cool as above.