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Dessert

Plum Cobbler

A baked dessert with a crust of flour and lard, topped with canned damson plums and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Plum Cobbler

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, melted lard, salt, and baking powder with sweet milk or water until combined.

  3. Roll the dough thin.

  4. Line a 9 by 18-inch pudding dish with the dough.

Assemble the cobbler

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 3 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Sprinkle the flour and sugar mixture over the crust.

  3. Pour canned damson plums into the crust.

  4. Sprinkle 1 coffee cup of sugar over the plums.

  5. Wet the edges of the crust with a mixture of flour and water.

  6. Place the upper crust on top.

  7. Press the edges together.

  8. Cut 2 incisions at right angles, each 1 inch long.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Flour + plumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

  5. Plum + coffeetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the plums and crust together.
Melted lard
Adds fat for a tender, flaky crust texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the crust rise and lighten as it bakes.
Damson plums
Provide the fruit filling, with juices that moisten the crust and add tartness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the plum juices thicken and brown.

The step that matters

Cut the incisions in the top crust. The incisions let steam escape during baking. Without them, trapped steam can make the crust soggy and push the filling out of the sides.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, coffee):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, coffee. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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