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Dessert

Wet Cherries

A preserved cherry confection made by boiling cherries in sugar syrup over several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Wet Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Choose fine cherries, remove the pits, and pick them.

  2. In a pot, combine cherries with an equal weight of sugar.

Make the syrup and cook over five days

  1. Clarify the sugar and boil it until it reaches a feather stage.

  2. Add the cherries to the boiling sugar, stirring occasionally.

  3. After boiling for 10-12 times, remove from heat and transfer to a pan.

  4. The next day, drain the syrup and boil it until it reaches a pearl stage.

  5. Return the cherries to the syrup and boil several times.

  6. Repeat this process for four consecutive days, increasing the boiling each day.

  7. On the fifth day, drain the cherries and boil the sugar until it reaches a little blow stage.

  8. Add the cherries back to the syrup and give them a final boil.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer the cherries and syrup into pots, leaving some space at the top.

  2. Cover the cherries with currant jelly for a smooth, transparent gloss.

  3. Once cooled, cover the pots with paper.

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Hold their shape through repeated boiling while absorbing the sugar syrup.
Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and preserves it through repeated cooking.

The step that matters

Repeated boiling of the cherries in syrup. Each cycle must be brought to the right sugar stage without overcooking the fruit. Boiling too hard or too long can break down the cherries, while letting the syrup stay too thin lets the fruit ferment or spoil.

“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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