Damson plum butter sour enough to cut through aged cheddar.
Small tart damsons cooked whole with the skins on, then pushed through a sieve until what is left is smooth, nearly black and properly sharp. This is the prune plum butter's difficult cousin: made for a cheese board, venison and roast pork rather than for toast. From a kitchen in Austin, by inquiry.
If it runs off a spoon held sideways, it is not finished.
Why this one costs more than the plum lekvar.
Damsons are the size of a large olive and the stone clings to the flesh, so there is no pitting them by hand at any sensible speed. They go into the pan whole with a little water, skins and stones and all, and cook until everything collapses. Then the whole pan is pushed through a sieve with a wooden pestle, which is the slow part and the part that leaves roughly a third of the weight behind as skins and stones.
Only after the sieve does the sugar go in, about one part to four parts of the sieved pulp, and the pan goes back on the gas for another two hours to tighten. Cooking skins-on before sieving is what gives the butter its colour, somewhere between ink and plum, and its astringency. Peel a damson first and you get a pleasant, forgettable purple spread.
No pectin and no spice. Damsons are tart enough that cinnamon or clove would just get in the way, and there is already plenty of natural pectin in the skins to hold it.
What it tastes like, honestly
Sour first, then sweet, with a dry finish that sticks to the roof of your mouth the way a strong tea does. People who grew up with damsons recognise it immediately. People expecting jam sometimes put the spoon down. It is the one jar in the pantry we hand out on a cracker before anyone buys it.
- Fruit
- Whole damsons, cooked with skins and stones, then sieved
- Yield loss
- About a third of pan weight left in the sieve
- Sugar : fruit
- About 1:4 by weight, added after sieving
- Cook
- Collapse, sieve, then about 2 hours more
- Set
- Smooth and firm, holds a ridge on a board
- Spice
- None added
- Sizes
- 8 oz jar, 16 oz jar
- Season
- Cooked in autumn, sold while the jars last
A spoonful next to something salty.
This is the savoury end of the pantry. If you want a jar for pastry, the lekvars do that job better and cost less.
Aged cheddar and rye
A teaspoon beside a wedge of two-year cheddar and a slice of dark rye. The acid does the work that a chutney usually does, without the vinegar and onion taste. Also good with a washed-rind cheese if you like a fight.
Venison and duck
Loosen two tablespoons with a splash of the pan juices and spoon it next to the meat. A 16 oz jar covers a deer season of weekend roasts.
Roast pork and sausage
Brushed on a pork loin for the last fifteen minutes it goes glossy and almost black. With a coarse sausage and mustard it replaces apple sauce and tastes like something rather than nothing.
Buttered sourdough
Thickly buttered bread first, then a thin layer of the butter. Without the fat underneath it is sharp enough to make you wince. For plain toast take the cider apple butter instead.
Why we do not blend it instead
A stick blender would be faster and would keep every ounce in the pan. It would also grind bits of skin and the odd stone fragment into the butter, and you would feel them. The sieve is slower, loses yield and is the reason the jar is $13 rather than $11. We are not going to change that part.
Jars, and no tubs. Here is why.
Bakeries do not use damson butter in pastry, and a 5 lb pail of something this tart would sit on a shelf going nowhere. So it is made in jars.
An estimate, not a quote. We confirm the price by phone or email before anything is made. Austin delivery is a flat $8 per order, shown separately from the jars. Pickup is free at the kitchen.
Fair warnings and plain answers.
Read the last one before you buy six jars.
How is this different from the plum lekvar?
Different fruit, different method, different job. Plum lekvar is prune plums, halved and left unsieved, cooked nine hours, sweet-dark and built to bake. Damson butter is sieved smooth, far more sour and does not belong in a kolache.
Will it bake in a pastry?
It mostly holds at 375°F, but it is not what we would use. It thins slightly more than the lekvars and the sourness concentrates as it bakes. Ask us for lekvar if the jar is going in an oven.
Can I get it all year?
No. We cook the damsons we can get in one autumn run and the jars last until they are gone. Write to ask before you count on it, especially in late spring.
Who should not buy this?
Anyone buying a gift for someone who likes sweet jam, and anyone feeding small children at breakfast. Buy one jar, taste it, then come back for more. We would rather sell you one than have five sit in your cupboard.
Send an inquiry. One of us answers it.
Say how many jars and whether you want to taste it first. We keep an open jar in the kitchen for that.
68 Oak Lane, Office 12Austin, Texas 86853