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 ↓
Canned Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup and cook the cherries
Prepare a syrup by dissolving sugar in water.
Add cherries to the syrup and heat until scalding (not boiling) for 10-15 minutes.
Remove the muslin bag with cherry stones before canning.
Can
Can and seal the cherries in jars.
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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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
- Make up the fruit itself, providing the main flavour and the texture of the finished preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, dissolved in the syrup, helps preserve the cherries and hold their shape.
The step that matters
Heating to scalding, not boiling. Holding the syrup just below a boil heats the cherries through without bursting or breaking them down. A rolling boil for the same 10-15 minutes would soften the fruit and cloud the syrup.
“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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