Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Cherry Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Put the pitted cherries through a coarse sieve to extract the pulp.
Cook the marmalade
In a pot, combine the cherry pulp, sugar, and currant juice.
Boil the mixture until it reaches a jelly-like consistency.
Store
Pour the marmalade into glasses or jars for storage.
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 + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and flavor of the marmalade.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a jelly-like texture as it boils.
- Currant juice
- Adds acidity and natural pectin to help the marmalade gel.
The step that matters
Boiling to a jelly-like consistency. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit solids and activates the pectin. Stopping too early leaves the marmalade runny, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and make it overly thick.
“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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