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Dried Cherry and Cranberry Sauce

"This is a wonderful cranberry sauce that I make every Thanksgiving."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cranberry and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 116 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

4 cups
Prep5 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Combine the cranberry juice cocktail, water, light brown sugar, broken cinnamon stick and ground allspice in a medium saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Add the dried cherries and fresh cranberries to the pan and return to a boil.

  4. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most cranberries have burst and the sauce thickens.

  5. Remove the pan from the heat and discard the cinnamon stick.

  6. Let the sauce cool for about 15 minutes; it will thicken further as it cools. Serve warm or chilled.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cranberry + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cranberry + allspicetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cranberry, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Clovebetter flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cranberry, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).