Why it works: Brandy and cherry work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 300 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Cherry Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Stone the cherries and remove the kernels from 12 stones.
Rub the kernels to a paste and mix with the crushed cherries.
Let the mixture stand for 1 hour, then squeeze out the juice.
Make and freeze the ice
Add sugar and water, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Strain the mixture, then add the brandy or maraschino.
Freeze the mixture until solid.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Brandy + cherrytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together300 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,598 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
- Tart cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and tartness, and most of the liquid for the ice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice softer.
- Brandy or maraschino
- Adds aroma and flavour and lowers the freezing point so the ice stays less hard.
The step that matters
Freeze the mixture until solid. Sugar and alcohol lower the freezing point, so the mixture freezes slowly and unevenly if the balance is off. Stirring during freezing helps create a smooth texture instead of large ice crystals.
Swap the cherry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Cherrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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