Easy, delicious, and festive, these homemade Sugar Plums are a unique treat to make this holiday season! With dried fruit, warming spices, and a sugary crunch, these will get you in the holiday spirit.
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Why We Love This Recipe
- Super easy recipe: All you need to do is pulse all of the ingredients in a food processor, roll the mixture into a plum-like shape, and coat with coarse sugar. It's really that easy.
- Christmas in a bite: If you're not quite in the holiday spirit yet, these will have visions of sugar plums dancing in your head. With dried fruit and spices, these have the flavor of a fruitcake, except they're actually tasty!
- They look amazing: With a little bit of purple sugar, rosemary and a toothpick, you can make these look just like plums, so they're perfect for bringing to parties to drum up some conversation.
Ingredients and Notes
- Prunes: These are dried plums, so they're perfect for this recipe.
- Dried apricots: You can also used dates or another dried, sticky fruit.
- Dried cranberries: You can sub this out for more apricots, dates, or another dried fruit of your choice. Raisins or golden raisins would also be great substitutions.
- Almonds: We used unsalted almonds and chopped them up.
- Pecans: We used unsalted pecans and chopped them.
- Jam: We used cherry jam, but you can use whatever flavor you prefer. Raspberry, apricot and fig are all great choices.
- Orange zest: We used freshly grated zest.
- Spices: We used cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, cardamom, and salt, but you can use your favorite blend of spices. We'd imagine pumpkin spice would also work really well here. If you don't have cardamom, you can leave it out.
- Sugar: We used coarse sugar to coat the plums, but you could also use regular sugar, though the effect won't be quite the same. We used this naturally colored purple sugar to make these really look like plums, but regular sugar is fine too!
- Rosemary: We used a 2-leaf section of rosemary to create a "stem" for the Sugar Plums.
Step-by-step Instructions
PREP: These homemade sugar plums taste best if you toast the nuts ahead of time. To do so, spread the nuts on a sheet pan and bake at 350˚F for 6-7 minutes, until they smell fragrant and nutty.
STEP 1: Chop all of the dried fruit finely. Add the fruit and nuts to a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add all remaining ingredients (except sugar) and pulse again until the mixture is stick and comes together.
STEP 2: Use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to portion out the plums, then shape into an oval. Optional: use a toothpick to make an indentation on the front. Roll in sugar and (optional) stick a little rosemary sprig in the top as a stem. Enjoy!
Expert Tips and FAQs
- Toast the nuts for extra flavor. This isn't 100% essential, but it adds extra flavor!
- Chop up all your fruit before it goes in the food processor. This will make it much easier to get evenly-sized pieces. If it's not chopped first, you may end up with some big pieces of dried fruit.
- Use a toothpick to create that trademark plum cleft, then create a depression in the top of your sugar plum with your finger, and add a piece of rosemary to get that "stem" look.
- If you don't have a food processor, you'll have to chop everything as finely as possible to get them to stick together.
- This is the food processor we use for all of our recipes.
- Using coarse, colored sugar will give you the best look and texture. This is the purple sugar we used (and it's naturally colored!).
- Storage: These sugar plums will last in the refrigerator for up to several weeks. You can also freeze them for long term storage (up to 6 months).
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Recipe
Sugar Plums
Ingredients
Method
- These homemade sugar plums taste best if you toast the nuts ahead of time. To do so, spread the nuts on a sheet pan and bake at 350˚F for 6-7 minutes, until they smell fragrant and nutty. If you want to skip the toasting step, that's fine.
- Chop all of the dried fruit finely. Add the fruit and nuts to a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add all remaining ingredients (except sugar) and pulse again until the mixture is sticky and comes together.
- Use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to portion out the plums, then shape into an oval. Optional: use a toothpick to make an indentation on the front. Roll in sugar until well coated and (optional) stick a little rosemary sprig in the top as a stem. Enjoy!
Julianne says
Are these safe to mail?
Lexi Harrison says
My only ingredient concern would be the jam – otherwise everything is fine at room temp. But I think it wouldn't be an issue as long as you or the recipient don't live somewhere super warm! I'd just instruct them to store in the fridge once received.
Sally Trent says
I made these last year for my Christmas cookie boxes, right down to the purple sugar and the rosemary sprigs. Every one liked them and my oldest brother said they were "absolutely delicious". The only problem I had was within a week. the plums started "weeping" (droplets of moisture forming on the surface).
Lexi says
Hi Sally, yes, this can definitely happen because the sugar draws out moisture. The only way to really prevent that for long term storage is to store without the sugar coating. So glad you enjoyed!
Emily says
These are delicious!! I haven’t rolled them in sugar yet but I’m going to get purple sanding sugar and mix it with edible glitter I have!! I’m so excited to see how they look!
Diana Brooks says
These turned out great and they taste delicious!
Lexi says
I'm so glad to hear that!!
Deb says
This looks delicious and a great way to use up my dried fruit at the end of the year. I've made similar sugar plums in the past, but they were not nearly as beautiful as these.
I will be making these for a holiday tea. The sugar you recommend is 3oz for the jar. How many sugar plums would this cover? Is it better to buy two jars?
Lexi says
One jar is more than enough for a full batch of these! I would only order a second jar if you're planning on making a double or triple batch. Thank you so much and hope you enjoy!
Mackena says
This recipe sounds amazing. Only problem: The “Print Recipe” link isn’t working (either one). It just takes you to another page with recipe links.
Brent Harrison says
Mackena, it should be working now.
Caitlin Callanan says
Hi 👋🏻
Can you substitute the cherry jam for a different flavor and if so what would you recommend as cherry just isn’t our favorite flavor
Lexi says
Definitely! Raspberry would be great.
Karen says
These are fabulous! I make them every few weeks and keep them in the fridge for when I need something sweet. I make them with a combination of the prune plums, cranberries, dates and apricots. I don't roll them in sugar. So much healthier than a lot of desserts.
Ellip Leis says
Mina ise kastaksin tumeda šokolaadi sisse võtta siis ka roosa shokilaadi sisse
Cathi says
You leave the nuts out? I was thinking of that, as I don’t care for nuts mixed in to other foods. Thanks.
Jessica says
These get 5 stars because other people loved them, and the recipe says exactly what they’ll taste like - fruit cake - but better. I didn’t love them. But I really don’t like fruit cake. I made them because it felt necessary. In American we sing about sugar plums but zero people know what they are. It was fun to bring a deeply traditional Christmas treat to the table. Some lives them and others were nice to say it was good but not finish it. lol, I’m curious what they would taste like with dried cherries instead of prunes. That’s the flavor I’m not a huge fan of anyways.
I dyed some sugar purple but the color wasn’t as vibrant as the picture which was a little disappointing. I thought I used course sugar too, but it all just soaked up, there was reminisce of purple but vague.
Liz says
Do I store them in the fridge with the sugar coated? Or do I coat them when I take them out? Thank you
Lexi says
Either is fine! We store ours in the fridge with the sugar coating.
John says
Tried these on 12-6-24 and they turned out very nicely. I pretty much followed the recipe as is, although I substituted ginger for the cardamom. I also discovered that you can get purple sanding sugar at Kroger. Give them a try.
Alex G says
Question- does it need to be stored in the refrigerator or can it be in stored with other cookies in a jar (on the counter)? I’m making a box of variety of cookies and want to include this.
Lexi says
Hi! It's best to keep these in the fridge because of the jam.
Alex G says
Thank you- and have you ever used black cherry jam? Is it a big difference?
Marie says
Lexi & Mom,
I've always wanted to serve up the traditional, but elusive, sugar plums. I saw you on Fbk. This recipe looks ridicks easy. Even tho no allergies here, I plan to use some pumpkin seeds as well, just cuz they're in the pantry. I cannot wait to make them.
Lexi says
Thank you so much 🙂 Enjoy!
Mary Robbins says
Ummmm...YUM!!
Sharon Neal says
Can you substitute dates for the prunes?
Lexi says
Yes that will work!
Elsie says
These are so cute! My family has nut allergies, can you recommend any substitutions? Perhaps pumpkin/sunflower seeds or rice krispies?
Lexi says
Thanks so much! I would personally try pumpkin seeds.