Excellent Damson Cheese

Instructions

1. When the fruit has been baked or stewed tender, as directed above, drain off the juice, skin and stone the damsons.
2. Pour back to them from a third to half of their juice, weigh them, and then boil them over a clear brisk fire, until they form quite a dry paste.
3. Add six ounces of pounded sugar for each pound of the plums; stir them off the fire until this is dissolved.
4. Boil the preserve again without quitting or ceasing to stir it, until it leaves the pan quite dry, and adheres in a mass to the spoon.
5. If it should not stick to the fingers when lightly touched, it will be sufficiently done to keep very long.
6. Press it quickly into pans or moulds; lay on it a paper dipped in spirit when it is perfectly cold; tie another fold over it, and store it in a dry place.
7. Bullace cheese is made in the same manner, and almost any kind of plum will make an agreeable preserve of the sort.
8. Proportions: To each pound of fruit, pared, stoned, and mixed with the juice and boiled quite dry, 6 oz. of pounded sugar, boiled again to a dry paste.