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Dessert

Damson Cheese

A jam made from damsons and sugar, cooked until thickened.

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. Remove the pits from the damsons and blanch them.

  2. Place the damsons in a stone jar and bake them.

  3. Pour off some juice, then transfer the fruit to a preserving pan.

Cook the jam

  1. Boil the fruit quickly until it looks rather dry.

  2. Stir in the sugar and let it simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Boil again quickly until it 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, pectin and acidity that give the jam its body and tang.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil again quickly until it begins to candy at the sides of the pan. Sugar concentration and boiling point rise as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves the jam runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or scorch on the bottom of the pan.

“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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