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Dessert

Damson Cheese

A preserved fruit cheese made from damsons, sugar, and optional stones, simmered and boiled until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 1 ingredients
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Damson Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Use 1/2 pound of loaf sugar for every pound of fruit pulp.

  2. Pick the stalks from the damsons and put them into a preserving pan.

  3. Simmer them over the fire until they are soft, occasionally stirring them.

  4. Beat the softened fruit through a coarse sieve.

Make the cheese

  1. Put the pulp and juice into the preserving pan, with sugar in the above proportion, having previously carefully weighed them.

  2. Stir the sugar well in.

  3. Simmer the damsons slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Skim well.

  5. Boil the preserve quickly for 1/2 hour, or until it looks firm and hard in the spoon.

  6. A few of the stones may be cracked, and the kernels boiled with the damsons, which very much improves the flavour of the cheese.

Pot and cover

  1. Put the preserve quickly into shallow pots, or very tiny earthenware moulds.

  2. When cold, cover it with oiled papers, and the jars with tissue-paper brushed over on both sides with the white of an egg.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit, pectin and tartness that give the cheese its body and flavour.
Loaf sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the preserve and helps it set firm and keep well.

The step that matters

Boil the preserve quickly until it sets. Sugar and fruit pectin only gel when the mixture reaches a high enough concentration. Undercooking leaves it runny, while prolonged slow simmering can dull the flavour and colour.

“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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