Why it works: Currant and cherry brandy work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Cherry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Chop the cherries not very fine.
In a saucepan, combine the chopped cherries, sugar, currant jelly, and hot water.
Boil for 8 minutes.
Serve
Serve hot, optionally adding maraschino and kirsch or cherry brandy.
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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Currant + cherry brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
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Sugar + cherry brandytop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together61 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
What each ingredient does
- Candied or preserved cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and chopped texture of the sauce.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the fruit.
- Currant jelly
- Adds pectin and fruity tartness, helping the sauce thicken as it cools.
The step that matters
Boil for 8 minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit flavour and begins to thicken the sauce through pectin from the jelly. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery, while boiling too long can make it overly sticky and dense once it cools.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cherry brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Cherryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cherry brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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