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Dessert

Damson Cheese

A preserved plum product made by boiling plums with sugar, removing stones, and reducing to a thick pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Damson Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the fruit

  1. Select sound, ripe plums and place them in a stone jar.

  2. Add ½ pound of sugar for each pound of fruit.

  3. Set the jar in boiling water and cook until the plums are tender.

  4. Remove the stones and cook the mixture longer until it becomes a pulp.

Thicken and store

  1. Add another ½ pound of sugar for each pound of fruit and cook slowly until thick and almost dry.

  2. Put the mixture into jars, seal them, and store in a cool place.

  3. Slice to serve with toast or bread.

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 fruit pulp, which breaks down into the body and flavor of the cheese.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as water cooks off, helps the mixture thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until thick and almost dry. Sugar and fruit pectin concentrate as water evaporates, so the mixture sets as it thickens. Stopping early leaves it too loose to keep well, while overcooking can scorch the sugar.

“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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