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Dessert

Plum Cheese

A preserved plum dessert made by boiling plums, adding sugar, cooking to jam consistency, and cooling in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Plum Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Boil the plums in enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Wash the plums.

  3. Strain the plums.

Make the plum cheese

  1. For every pound of pulp, add half a pound of clear brown sugar.

  2. Cook the mixture like jam.

  3. Stir the mixture to prevent burning.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  5. Let the mold cool.

  6. Cut into slices to serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the pulp that sets into the body of the cheese and supply its fruity flavor.
Clear brown sugar
Sweetens the pulp and, as it cooks down, helps the mixture thicken and firm when cooled.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture like jam. The pulp and sugar must be cooked long enough to thicken, since the pectin and sugar set as it cools. Stirring constantly prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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