So, what the hell exactly is a sugarplum?

December 19, 1:02 PMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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Sugarplums, it turns out, are a great source
of nuts but, rarely, plums.

Confession time: I am not a Christmas person. Having said that, I am not immune to the earworms of the festive season. John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” plays endlessly in my head and I find myself – most annoyingly of all – reciting the opening stanza of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” over and over.

Waking up with it, yet again, worming its way through my brain, I finally asked myself the question that needed to be asked: What the hell is a sugarplum, anyway? Turns out, I’m not the only person looking for answers. Plugging “sugarplum” into Google pulls up a wealth of responses, largely from people equally in the dark.

Yes, there is a strain of plums called sugar plums. With sugar levels reaching up to 25 percent, they’re aptly named, but probably not the sort of thing kids dream about. But sugary-sweet, sticky confections probably are, and – indeed – that’s what we’re looking for. While it wasn’t uncommon to preserve plums in sugar for the winter ahead, some sources say the first sugarplums were actually sugar-coated coriander. Other variations evolved often not containing plums at all, except for the occasional inclusion of dried plums, or prunes.

Made from dried fruits ground with nuts and rolled in sugar, sugarplums are very sweet and exactly the sort of thing you want to limit to one holiday per year. After digging around on line and through my own cookbooks, I pulled up several variations on the theme. One includes flour and must be baked, some contain alcohol, and others aren’t called sugar plums at all, but the recipes are similar to those that are. I doubt these will replace visions of dancing Wiis in the heads of 21st century children, but they are guaranteed to give them a serious sugar rush.

• From Saveur magazine, we have a version featuring almonds and honey, but no plums.
• King Arthur Flour offers a very involved, baked, flour-based variation including rum and cider.
• Another source offers a recipe which includes unsweetened cocoa and bills it as a “healthy Christmas recipe”.
• The Associated Press published a recipe earlier this month that includes a wide variety of dried fruits and pistachios, but again, no plums.
• And now, just because I’ve probably planted that damned poem in your head and you’ll be unable to get it out, here’s the poem itself.