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 the cherries aside in a pan.
Extract the juice from the red currants and set the currant juice aside.
Make the jam
Boil the sugar until it reaches the half degree stage.
Add the cherries and the currant juice to the sugar.
Boil sharply for twenty minutes, stirring continuously with a skimmer.
Remove the scum as it rises.
Check that the jam sets and falls from the skimmer.
Finish
Pour the jam into pots.
Finish in the usual manner.
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, flavour and pectin-bearing pulp that forms the jam's bulk.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, at high concentration, helps it thicken and set.
- Red currants
- Add natural acidity and pectin, helping the jam set and adding a sharper flavour.
The step that matters
Check that the jam sets. Boiling sharply with sugar concentrates the mixture until it gels. Undercooked jam stays runny and may spoil, while overcooking can make it stiff and sugary. Testing by how it falls from the skimmer shows whether it has reached setting point.
“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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