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Cherries Sweet, in Syrup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cherries Sweet, in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stone the cherries and place them in a tub.

  2. Pour boiling hot syrup over the cherries and cover them until the next day.

  3. Boil the cherries again and return them to the tub; repeat this process for eight days.

  4. Make a thick syrup and pour it over the cherries in an earthen pot.

  5. Top with apple jelly and cover with brandy papers.

  6. To dry sweet cherries, warm them in a preserving pan and drain through a sieve.

  7. Place the drained cherries in a hot stove, shifting the sieve daily until dry.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together561 recipes

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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