Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Cheese

A plum-based dessert made by stewing plums with sugar, straining, adding gelatin and optional cochineal, then setting in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Plum Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the plum puree

  1. Stew the plums in the water with the sugar until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Set and finish

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in a little water.

  2. Strain the gelatine mixture into the puree.

  3. Add cochineal if desired.

  4. Pour into a mold to set.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit flavour and body for the puree.
Sugar
Sweetens the plum puree and balances its natural tartness.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the strained puree into a firm, sliceable cheese.

The step that matters

Passing the plums through a fine sieve. Straining removes skins and fibrous pulp so the puree is smooth. Any remaining solids would show as grit in the set cheese and weaken an even texture.

“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.

More plum cheese recipes

Damson 4and Jelly 3 See all 6 →

You might also like

Mixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes