Why it works: Cherry and sugar 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 ↓
Cherry Phosphate
Ingredients
Directions
Macerate the Wild Cherry Bark in 4 cups of water for 24 hours.
Strain the mixture and combine it with 1 gallon of canned cherry juice.
Add 2 ounces of Acid Phosphate or a solution of citric acid.
Sweeten with sugar to taste and dilute with water as desired.
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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Cherry + sugartop 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
- Wild cherry bark
- Steeped in water to extract flavor, giving the drink its characteristic bitter, aromatic note.
- Canned cherry juice
- Provides the main cherry flavor and the bulk of the liquid in the drink.
- Acid phosphate or citric acid
- Adds tartness that balances the sweetness and brightens the cherry flavor.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the phosphate or citric acid.
The step that matters
Macerate the Wild Cherry Bark for the full 24 hours. Steeping extracts flavor from the bark slowly, and a shorter soak leaves the drink weaker and less aromatic. Straining out the bark afterward keeps its bitterness from overpowering the juice.
“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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