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Dessert

Excellent Damson Cheese

A preserved fruit cheese made from damsons, sugar, and juice, cooked until dry and set.

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 ↓

Excellent Damson Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bake or stew the damsons until tender.

  2. Drain off the juice.

  3. Skin the damsons.

  4. Stone the damsons.

  5. Return ⅓ to ½ of the juice to the fruit.

  6. Weigh the damsons.

Make the cheese

  1. Boil the damsons over a brisk fire until they form a dry paste.

  2. Add 6 ounces of pounded sugar for each pound of damsons.

  3. Stir until dissolved.

  4. Boil the mixture again.

  5. Stir continuously until it leaves the pan dry and adheres to the spoon.

  6. Check if it doesn't stick to your fingers when lightly touched; if so, it's done.

  7. Quickly press the mixture into pans or molds.

Store

  1. Once cool, cover with a paper dipped in spirit.

  2. Tie another layer over it.

  3. Store in a dry place.

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 pulp that cooks down into the thick, sliceable paste.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it cooks, helps the paste set firm and keep well.

The step that matters

Judging when the paste is done. Cooking must continue until the mixture leaves the pan dry and no longer sticks to the fingers. Stopping early leaves a soft paste that will not set, while overcooking makes it hard and dry.

“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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