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 ↓
Dried Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the cherries
Stone the cherries and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Spread them on flat dishes overnight.
In the morning, pour off any syrup that has formed and weigh the fruit.
Make the syrup and scald
Make a syrup using equal weight of sugar to fruit, wetting the sugar with cherry juice and just enough water to dissolve it.
Bring the syrup to a boil.
Add the fruit and scald it.
Remove the fruit gently.
Boil the syrup for 15 minutes, skimming constantly.
Dry and store
Spread the cherries in tin pans.
Place them in a 350°F (175°C) oven.
Gradually add the syrup and turn the cherries until dry, for several days.
Once cool, store the cherries in glass jars. Cover tightly.
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 + cherrytop 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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit that dries into a chewy, concentrated piece with intense flavour.
- Sugar
- Draws out moisture and, once cooked into syrup, preserves the fruit and adds sweetness.
- Powdered sugar
- Coats the fruit and begins drawing out juice overnight, starting the preserving process.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup and skim constantly. Boiling concentrates the sugar so it can preserve the fruit, and skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud the syrup and spoil its flavour.
“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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