Name: Cherries Sweet, in Syrup
Ingredients: Best Kentish cherries; Boiling hot syrup; Apple jelly; Brandy papers

Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cherries Sweet, in Syrup

Ingredients

Best Kentish cherries
Boiling hot syrup
Apple jelly
Brandy papers

Directions

Stone the cherries and place them in a tub.
Pour boiling hot syrup over the cherries and cover them until the next day.
Boil the cherries and syrup, then return them to the tub.
Repeat boiling softly for 20 minutes each day for eight days.
Make a thick syrup and pour it over the cherries in an earthen pan or pot.
Top with apple jelly and cover with brandy papers.

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.

Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together561 recipes
Syrup + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together742 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).