Why it works: Sugar and red currant 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
Weigh the cherries before stoning them.
Stone the cherries and place them in a preserving pan.
Cook the jam
Boil the cherries until nearly all the juice has evaporated.
Crush the sugar to a powder and add it to the cherries.
Add the red currant juice, using 1 pint for every pound of sugar.
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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Sugar + red curranttop 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 flavour and bulk, and their juice reduces to concentrate the jam.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the jam thicken and keep well.
- Red currant juice
- Adds acidity and pectin, which help the jam set.
The step that matters
Boiling the cherries until nearly all the juice has evaporated. Cooking down concentrates the fruit and its natural pectin. If the jam is stopped too early it stays runny, and if it is boiled too long it becomes stiff and can scorch.
“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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