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Preserve

Delicious Cherry Preserve

A sweet preserve made from cherries, sugar, raisins, and oranges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,684 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Delicious Cherry Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cherries

  1. Stone the cherries.

Make the preserve

  1. Cook the cherries in their own juice slowly for 15 minutes.

  2. Heat the sugar in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Add the heated sugar to the cherries, raisins, and the juice and pulp of the oranges.

  4. Cook until the mixture is as thick as marmalade.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Provide the main fruit body and flavor, releasing juice that cooks into the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it dissolves and thickens, helps it set into a spreadable texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the preserve.
Oranges
Contribute acidity and aromatic citrus flavor, plus natural pectin from the pulp to help thickening.

The step that matters

Cook until as thick as marmalade. Sugar and fruit pectin thicken only as water evaporates and the mixture reaches a high enough concentration. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky as it cools.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. 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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