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To Can Cherries

A method for preserving cherries by canning them with sugar and cherry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cherry 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 ↓

To Can Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Stone the cherries using a cherry stoner.

  2. Save the stones and boil them with 1 cup of water for 15 minutes to make juice.

  3. Strain the juice over the cherries and add 1 pound of sugar.

Cook the fruit

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil quickly.

  2. Boil until the cherries change color, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Jar and store

  1. Place a jar with a silver spoon on a wet cloth.

  2. Fill the jar with the boiling fruit to the brim.

  3. Cover the jar tightly and tighten the cover again before storing.

  4. Wrap the jar in paper.

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

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.

  1. Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cherries
Provide the main fruit, whose flesh softens and holds shape as it cooks.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit once it is sealed in the jar.
Cherry juice
Adds liquid and flavor, so the fruit cooks in a syrup rather than dry heat.

The step that matters

Fill the jar to the brim with boiling fruit. Filling with boiling fruit and leaving no headspace drives air out of the jar, so the contents stay hot and the seal forms as it cools. Air left in the jar can allow spoilage.

“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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