Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cherry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stones from the cherries and set them aside in a pan.
Extract the juice from the currants and set that aside.
Cook the jam
Boil the sugar until it reaches the ball degree.
Add the cherries and currant juice to the boiling sugar.
Boil sharply for twenty minutes, stirring with a skimmer and removing scum as it rises.
When the jam sets and falls from the skimmer, pour it into pots and finish as usual.
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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Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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 body and flavour of the jam.
- Red currants
- Contribute natural pectin and tartness that help the jam set and balance the sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, when boiled, thickens and helps preserve it.
The step that matters
Judging the set. Jam sets as pectin and acid work with sugar at high concentration while the mixture boils. Stopping too early leaves it runny; boiling too long can make it stiff and dull. Checking that the jam sets and falls off the skimmer shows it is ready.
“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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