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
Bake or stew the damsons until tender, then drain off the juice.
Skin the damsons and remove the stones.
Return one-third to one-half of the juice back to the fruit.
Weigh the damsons and boil them over a brisk fire until they form a dry paste.
Make the cheese
Add six ounces of pounded sugar for each pound of damsons and stir until dissolved.
Continue boiling while stirring until the mixture leaves the pan dry and adheres to the spoon.
Test the mixture by lightly touching it; if it does not stick to your fingers, it is done.
Quickly press the mixture into pans or molds.
Store
Cover the cooled mixture with a paper dipped in spirit and tie another layer over it.
Store in a dry place.
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.
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Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 and natural pectin that set the mixture into a firm paste.
- Pounded sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, with prolonged boiling, helps thicken and preserve the paste.
The step that matters
Boiling until the mixture is dry. Sugar and fruit must cook down far enough that water evaporates and the paste sets firm. Stopping early leaves a soft mixture that will not hold its shape, while overcooking can make it stiff and sugary.
“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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