Skip to main content
Dessert

Nursery Preserve

A preserve made from pitted cherries, raspberries, red and white currants, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Nursery Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Boil the pitted cherries in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the raspberries, red currants, and white currants to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture quickly for another 20 minutes.

Add sugar and finish

  1. Stir in the sugar and boil for 15 more minutes, stirring continuously to prevent burning.

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. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Provide the main body, sweetness and flavour of the preserve as they break down.
Raspberries
Add aroma and bright flavour to the preserve.
Red currants
Contribute natural pectin and tartness that help the preserve set.
White currants
Add acidity and pectin that support setting and a fresh, tart flavour.
Common sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it thickens, helps it set and preserves it.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sugar boils. Once sugar is added, the thick fruit mixture scorches easily on the bottom of the pot. Constant stirring prevents burning, which would give a bitter, caramelised taste and spoil the preserve.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes