Why it works: Sugar and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cherry Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Cook the cherries with the pits until done.
Drain off the juice and pass the pulp through a fruit sieve.
Cook the butter
For each cup of pulp, add one cup of sugar.
Boil the mixture for twenty minutes.
Optionally, add some good cooking apples to improve the flavor.
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 + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cherries with pits
- Provide the fruit pulp that gives the butter its main flavor and body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, as water evaporates during boiling, helps the butter thicken.
- Cooking apples
- Add tartness and natural pectin, which helps the butter set.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture for twenty minutes. As water evaporates, the sugar and fruit concentrate and thicken into a butter. A boil that is too short leaves it runny, while one that runs too long can scorch the sugar and darken the flavor.
“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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