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Dessert

Damson Jelly

A fruit jelly made from damsons and bullaces boiled, strained, and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Damson Jelly

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Bake or boil the damsons and bullaces in a water bath until soft.

  2. Pour off the clear juice from the fruit, strain, and weigh it.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the juice quickly without sugar for 25 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 10 ounces of sugar for each pound of juice.

  3. Boil quickly for 6 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly and removing any scum.

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

Damsons
Provide the fruit's natural pectin and acid, which allow the juice to set into a jelly.
Bullaces or pale plums
Add more pectin and flavour to the juice, supporting a firm set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with boiling, helps the pectin and acid form a gel that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully before a hard rolling boil, and the jelly must reach setting point. Stirring constantly prevents scorching on the base of the pan, and removing scum keeps the jelly clear. Undercooked jelly will not set; overcooked jelly becomes stiff.

“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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