Recipe: Sugar Plums

In all honesty, we had no idea what sugar plums were until after watching Alton Brown's Good Eats Christmas special the other night. We'd heard of sugar plums in lore -- psychedelically dancing in the heads of children in the "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and in fairy form in Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker -- but we didn't know that the old timey Christmas treat was, in fact, just a dragée of dried fruits, spices, honey and sugar rolled into a ball. (They're sweet, decorative, and keep you regular. Genius.)

Try them yourself. Brown's recipe is as follows:

Sugar Plums
6 oz toasted slivered almonds
4 oz dried plums
4 oz apricots and figs
1/4 teaspoon anise seeds
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 honey
pinch of salt
1 cup course sugar

In a food processor chop the almonds, dried plums, apricots and figs. Toast the anise seeds, fennel seeds and caraway seeds. Add the toasted seeds, cardamom, confectioners sugar, salt, honey in a bowl and mix together.

Form into 1/4 ounce balls. Dry the balls for a few hours or overnight, covered with a towel. After drying, roll the balls in our hand to warm and coat in course sugar.