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Dessert

Morelia Cherries, Preserved

Preserved cherries made with sugar and currant juice, simmered and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Morelia Cherries, Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Select fully ripe cherries and remove the stalks.

  2. Prick the cherries.

  3. Spread half the sugar over the cherries on flat dishes.

  4. Let the cherries rest overnight.

Make the syrup and cook the fruit

  1. Melt the remaining sugar in the currant juice over low heat.

  2. Add the cherries and their syrup.

  3. Gently simmer the mixture.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Let the mixture stand overnight again.

  6. Simmer once more.

  7. Let the mixture stand another night.

Finish and seal

  1. Boil the syrup until thick.

  2. Pour the thick syrup over the fruit.

  3. Seal the jar when cold.

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 + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 that softens and holds its shape in the sugar syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and draws moisture out of the fruit, thickening the syrup.
Currant juice
Adds acidity and flavour, and its pectin helps the syrup set.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar concentration must rise enough to set the syrup and keep the fruit preserved. Undercooked syrup stays thin and may spoil, while overcooking can make it hard or caramelised.

“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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