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 ↓
Cherry Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sugar
Boil the sugar until it reaches the pouring stage.
Divide the sugar into three equal parts.
Flavor all parts with essence of cherry and a little acid.
Color one part red with cochineal paste and another part yellow.
Shape
Pull the third portion white until thoroughly pulled.
Layer the white sugar between the red and yellow pieces.
Use a ball machine to shape the mixture.
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 + 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
- Sugar
- Forms the candy base that sets firm and glossy as it cools.
- Cochineal paste
- Provides the red coloring for the candy.
The step that matters
Pulling the white portion until thoroughly pulled. Pulling incorporates air into the boiled sugar, turning it opaque and white and giving it a tender, less glassy texture. Stopping too early leaves it translucent and dense, so it will not match the other colored parts.
“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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