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Preserved Cherries

A method for making preserved cherries by boiling cherries in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Preserved Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Stone the cherries and weigh them.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in water using 1 pint of water for every 1½ pounds of sugar.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the cherries to the syrup and bring to a boil for 30 minutes until it begins to thicken.

  2. Once thickened, pour into pots and cover with brandied paper, then seal tightly to keep out air.

Alternative method

  1. For a different method, use ½ pound of sugar for every pound of fruit, scald the fruit in the syrup for 10‑15 minutes, then can and seal.

  2. Optionally, add cherry stones in a muslin bag to the syrup for extra flavor, but do not include them in the jars.

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 fruit, which softens and releases flavor into the syrup as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as the syrup thickens, helps preserve it by binding water.

The step that matters

Boil until the syrup begins to thicken. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises, which is what preserves the fruit and sets the syrup. Stopping too early leaves a thin syrup that spoils more easily.

“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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