Why it works: Sugar and cherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,598 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Syrup for Fruit Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Seed the cherries and let them stand in a bowl overnight.
In the morning, press the cherries through a fine cloth dipped in boiling water.
Make the syrup
Weigh the juice, add the sugar, and boil for 15 minutes, removing all the scum.
Bottle and store
Fill small, dry bottles with the syrup, cork tightly, seal, and store upright in a cool place.
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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Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,598 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sour cherries
- Provide the juice and fruit flavor that forms the base of the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, when boiled, thickens it and helps it keep.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with sugar and removing the scum. The syrup must boil long enough to dissolve the sugar and concentrate the juice, and skimming foam keeps the finished syrup clear and free of impurities that could spoil it.
“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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