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Dessert

Preserved Cherries

A sweet preserve made by boiling cherries with sugar and water, then jarred and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Preserved Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone the cherries and weigh them.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in water using 1 pint of water for every 1.5 pounds of sugar.

Cook

  1. Add the stoned cherries to the sugar solution and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil rapidly for 30 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken.

Jar and seal

  1. Once thickened, transfer to jars and cover with brandied paper, then seal tightly.

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
Provide the fruit that is preserved, supplying the main flavour and texture of the finished dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at this concentration, helps preserve it and thicken the syrup as it boils.
Water
Dissolves the sugar into a syrup that the cherries cook in.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly for 30 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken. Sugar concentration rises as water evaporates during the boil. Boiling long enough to reach a thickened syrup helps the sugar preserve the fruit. Stopping early leaves a thinner syrup that may spoil sooner.

“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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