This picture is of commercially made sugarplum candy, but originally, the word "sugarplum" was another name for "comfit." Comfits are seeds or fruit that are sugar-coated and the earliest comfits were made from seeds such as anise, caraway, fennel and coriander.
Later, the word "plum" referred to all fruits. Comfits began to be made of fruits, such as oranges, lemons, gooseberries, cherries, currants and raspberries. Cinnamon, ginger, and orange rinds were cut into slivers and also made into comfits. The comfits were rolled in sugar and dried and became known as "sugarplums."
The image of commercially made Sugar Plums is from Amazon.
Seeds had to be dried first before they could be sugar-coated. One way to dry the seeds was to place them in a pan on a gentle heat such as warm coals. They used their left hand to rub the seeds as they dried so they wouldn't clump together, and their right hand to swirl the pan to keep the seeds moving. 
When the seeds were completely dry, the thin syrup was poured over them. Again, the seeds were rubbed with the left hand to keep them from clumping, and the pan was swirled with the right hand to keep the seeds moving and coat them with syrup.
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This was interesting. I admit that I really did not know much about comfits.
Comfits were popular in my country too, but I think they are slowly loosing it. There is competition everywhere and candy industry is no exception. Thanks for another charming article!
This was so interesting. Of course, we've heard of sugarplums and associated them with Christmas, but we didn't really know what they were. Aside from the sugar, they look pretty healthy, as all of the spices you listed have medicinal properties.