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Dessert

Excellent Damson Cheese

A sweet preserve made from damsons, sugar, and spirit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and spirit work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Excellent Damson Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bake or stew the damsons until tender.

  2. Drain off the juice.

  3. Skin the damsons.

  4. Stone the damsons.

  5. Return ⅓ to ½ of the juice to the fruit.

  6. Weigh the damsons.

Make the cheese

  1. Boil them over a brisk fire until they form a dry paste.

  2. Add 6 ounces of sugar for each pound of damsons.

  3. Stir until dissolved.

  4. Continue boiling while stirring until the mixture leaves the pan dry and adheres to the spoon.

  5. Test the mixture by lightly touching it; if it doesn't stick to your fingers, it is done.

  6. Quickly press the mixture into pans or molds.

Cover and store

  1. Cover the mixture with a paper dipped in spirit.

  2. Tie another layer over it.

  3. Store in a dry place.

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. Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit pulp that cooks down into a thick, set paste.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and, with long boiling, helps it thicken and set firmly.

The step that matters

Testing the mixture by touch. Sugar and fruit pectin set as the paste loses water. Removing it too early leaves a soft, sticky result that will not hold its shape, while overcooking makes it stiff and dry. The lightly-touched test shows when enough water has evaporated.

“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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