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Dessert

Plum Cobler

A baked dessert of canned damson plums topped with a buttery dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Plum Cobler

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.

Make the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, melted lard, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Add sweet milk or water to form a dough.

  4. Roll the dough thin.

  5. Line a 9 by 18‑inch pudding dish or dripping pan with the dough.

Fill and cover

  1. Mix 3 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons sugar.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture over the crust.

  3. Pour in 3 pints of canned damson plums.

  4. Sprinkle 1 coffee cup sugar over the plums.

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

  6. Cover with an upper crust, pressing the edges together.

  7. Cut two incisions in the top crust, each about 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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + plumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 fruit filling in the cobbler.
Melted lard
Adds fat that makes the crust tender and short.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and lightens while baking.
Damson plums
Provide the fruit filling, whose juices soften the crust beneath as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the plums and helps the filling thicken and brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Pressing the edges together and cutting the vents. A tight seal keeps the juices from leaking out, and the incisions let steam escape so the top crust does not burst or turn soggy.

Swap the plum

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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