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Dessert

Preserved Cherries

Cherries preserved with sugar and brandy, then jarred and stored in a cool, dark place.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Remove the stalks and stone the cherries carefully.

  2. Weigh the cherries and use an equal weight of sugar.

  3. Shake the sugar over the cherries and let them sit overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, place the cherries and sugar in a preserving pan and heat gradually.

  2. Boil gently until the cherries look clear, skimming off any scum.

  3. Remove from heat, cover, and let cool.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer to glass jars, place a piece of white paper dipped in brandy on top, and seal tightly.

  2. Store in a cool, dark place.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 fruit, which softens and turns clear as it cooks in sugar.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the cherries and preserves them as it dissolves into syrup.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps inhibit spoilage on the paper placed over the jars.

The step that matters

Heating gradually and boiling gently. Heating slowly lets the sugar dissolve and draw syrup into the fruit evenly. Vigorous boiling can break the cherries apart and make the syrup cloudy or over-reduced.

“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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