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Dessert

Preserved Cherries

A method of preserving large scarlet cherries in sugar syrup with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Select large scarlet cherries and remove the stems.

  2. Wash the cherries and either remove the pits or keep them whole.

  3. Weigh the fruit and use 1 pound of sugar for each pound of cherries.

Make and add the syrup

  1. Prepare the syrup as directed in article 235.

  2. Add the cherries to the syrup, being careful not to boil them too much.

Jar and seal

  1. Place the cherries in jars and pour the warm syrup over them.

  2. Cover the fruit with pieces of paper dipped in brandy and secure to exclude air.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Large scarlet cherries
Provide the fruit that is preserved and gives the dish its flavor and texture.
Sugar
Makes the syrup that preserves the fruit and sweetens it.
Brandy
Its fumes on the paper cover help discourage spoilage at the surface of the jar.

The step that matters

Add the cherries to the syrup without boiling them. Boiling cherries hard toughens and breaks down the fruit, so it should be kept gentle to keep the cherries firm and whole.

“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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