Why it works: Cherry and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,598 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Mash and pound the cherries until the stones are broken.
Press the mixture through a cloth to extract the juice.
Cook and bottle
Combine the cherry juice with the sugar in a pot.
Boil the mixture, skimming off any foam.
Bottle the syrup and seal it once cooled.
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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Cherry + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,598 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
- Cherry juice
- Provides the main liquid and cherry flavour for the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps it keep by binding water and thickening it as it cooks.
The step that matters
Skimming off the foam while boiling. Foam rises from proteins and impurities released as the juice heats. Leaving it in can cloud the syrup and affect its clarity and keeping quality, so it should be removed as it forms.
“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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