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Dessert

Mussel Plum Cheese and Jelly

A dessert made from ripe plums, sugar, and boiled plum pulp, set into jelly and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and cheese work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 176 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol, which smells fusel, malty. The science ↓

Mussel Plum Cheese and Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Fill large stone jars with ripe, dry, and sound plums.

  2. Place the jars in an oven that has been off for several hours, or boil them gently in water until tender.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag.

  4. Weigh the strained juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the juice rapidly for 25 minutes.

  2. Add 3 lbs of sugar to the juice and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Boil quickly for another 10 minutes, removing any scum.

  4. Pour the jelly into small molds or pans.

  5. Let the jelly set.

Make the cheese

  1. For the cheese, skin and stone the boiled plums.

  2. Boil the plums for 1 hour and 15 minutes over a brisk fire, stirring constantly.

  3. Add 1 lb of powdered sugar to the plums.

  4. Boil for another 30 minutes.

  5. Press the mixture into shallow pans.

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 + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cheesetop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 and natural pectin and acid that let the juice and flesh set.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the jelly and cheese set and keep their form.

The step that matters

Stirring the plums constantly during the long boil. As the fruit thickens and sugar concentrates, the mixture can stick and scorch on the base of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the cheese smooth and free of burnt flavour.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cheese. 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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