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Dessert

Cherry Toast

A dessert of ripe cherries served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,638 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cherry Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stem the cherries.

  2. Wash the cherries.

  3. Remove the stones if desired.

Cook the cherries

  1. Place the cherries in a pot over the fire.

  2. Add a little water if they are not very ripe.

  3. Add sugar to taste while the cherries are cooking.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast several slices of bread until nicely browned.

  2. When the cherries are soft but not broken, pour them over the toasted bread.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe cherries
Provide the main fruit flavor, sweetness and juice that soaks into the bread.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the cherries.
Bread
Forms the base that holds the cooked cherries, and toasting adds browning and a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Cook the cherries until soft but not broken. Heat softens the cherries' cell walls and pectin, so they become tender. Cooking too long breaks the fruit down into mush, while stopping too early leaves them firm and less juicy.

“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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