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Dessert

Damson Cheese

A jam made from damsons and sugar, cooked until thick and then stored in shallow pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Damson Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Stone the damsons and remove the kernels.

  2. Blanch the damsons.

  3. Place the damsons in a stone jar.

  4. Bake the jar until the fruit is soft.

  5. Pour off some juice.

  6. Transfer the fruit to a preserving pan.

Make the jam

  1. Boil quickly until the mixture looks dry.

  2. Add the sugar and stir well.

  3. Simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Boil again quickly until the mixture begins to candy at the sides of the pan.

Pot and seal

  1. Pour the jam into shallow pots, no more than 1 inch deep.

  2. Cover with brandy paper and tie down securely.

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit flavour, natural pectin and acidity that set and brighten the jam.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it concentrates during boiling, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Boil again quickly until the mixture begins to candy at the sides of the pan.. Sugar concentration and pectin must reach the setting point. Stopping too early leaves a runny jam, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

“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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