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Dessert

Cherry Jam

A sweet preserve made from ripe cherries, sugar, and cherry stones and kernels, boiled until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the stones of part of the cherries.

  2. Blanch the kernels.

Cook the jam

  1. Combine the cherries, sugar, and kernels in a pot.

  2. Boil gently until the jam becomes clear and separates from the pan.

Cool and store

  1. Pour the jam into china plates to cool before serving.

  2. Store in boxes with layers of white paper in between.

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 + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cherries
Provide the fruit base, flavor, and bulk of the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.
Blanched cherry kernels
Add a subtle nutty, almond-like aroma to the jam.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the jam clears and separates from the pan. Cooking drives off water and concentrates the sugar and fruit pectin so the jam sets. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long or too hard can scorch the sugar and darken the flavor.

“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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