Given the release of Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor this year, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about what sugar plums really are…and what sugar-plums are too.
The original sugar plums are exactly what they sound like–sugared plums. You take dried or preserved plums, roll them in sugar, and bake them at a low temperature for 2 hours. Then take them out, let them cool enough to handle them, roll them again, bake them again…and repeat for a total of 6 or so times, until they’re dense and chewy and covered in crystallized sugar.
This treat has been so popular historically that by the 1600s, the word sugar-plum came to mean ANY sweet treat or confection! So in “The Night Before Christmas,” when visions of sugar-plums are dancing in your head, this could be any candy or holiday treat, not necessarily sugared plums. Same goes for the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Have you ever had actual sugared plums? What’s your favorite holiday sweet treat?
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.