Why it works: Red currant and sugar 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 Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Stem and stone the cherries.
Combine cherries and currants in a copper preserving pan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until reduced to a mash.
Strain and set
Strain the mixture through a hair sieve and filter through a jelly bag.
Add 1 ½ pounds of sugar for each pound of fruit and boil until it reaches a jelly consistency.
Remove any scum and pour into glasses or jars.
Store
Once cooled, cover with brandied paper, tie, and store for later use.
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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Red currant + sugartop 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
- Provides the main fruit flavor and most of the body of the jelly.
- Fine red currants
- Adds natural pectin and tartness, helping the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, once boiled, helps it set by binding water.
The step that matters
Boiling to jelly consistency. Sugar and fruit must be boiled until the mixture reaches the point where it sets on cooling. Stopping too early leaves a runny jelly, while boiling too long makes it stiff and can cause sugar to crystallize.
“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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