Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
To Preserve Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Remove the stones from the cherries using a quill, keeping the fruit as whole as possible.
Make the syrup and cook the cherries
In a pot, combine the red currant juice and sugar, and bring to a boil, skimming as needed.
After boiling for 20 minutes, add the cherries and bring to a boil again.
Once boiling, set aside for 15 minutes, then repeat the boiling process 3 or 4 times.
Jar and seal
Transfer the cherries to glasses or wide-mouthed bottles.
Boil the syrup for an additional 15 minutes and pour it over the cherries.
Seal the jars with bladder and leather or cork and seal.
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.
-
Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cherries
- The fruit that is preserved and holds its shape through repeated boiling.
- Red currant juice
- Adds tart, fruity flavour to the syrup that the cherries absorb.
- Double-refined sugar
- Forms the syrup that preserves the cherries and sweetens the fruit.
The step that matters
Repeated boiling of the cherries. Repeated heating with the syrup gradually draws sugar into the fruit. Boiling too hard or too long can break the cherries apart, so keeping them whole depends on careful, gentle cycles.
“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.
More preserved cherries recipes
You might also like
Green Corn Pudding64 recipes
Cornmeal mush12 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.