Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Cherry Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pit the cherries and thoroughly mash them through a coarse sieve.
For every 3 pounds of cherry pulp, add ½ pint of currant juice.
Cook and store
Add ¾ pound of sugar for each pound of fruit and mix well.
Boil the mixture until it reaches a jelly consistency.
Pour into cans or glasses for storage.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and pectin-bearing pulp that forms the marmalade body.
- Currant juice
- Adds natural acidity and pectin that help the marmalade set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps it thicken into a spreadable set as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boiling to a jelly consistency. Cooking must continue until the sugar concentration and pectin-acid balance allow the mixture to gel. Stopping too early leaves a runny marmalade, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.
“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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