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
Weigh 12 pounds of ripe cherries and 1 pound of sugar.
Break the stones of some cherries and blanch them.
Cook
Combine the cherries, sugar, and blanched stones in a pot.
Boil gently until the jam is clear and comes away from the pan.
Cool and store
Pour the jam into china plates to cool.
Store in boxes with white paper between layers.
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.
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Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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, flavor, and bulk that make up the jam.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
- Cherry stones
- Blanched stones add a subtle almond-like aroma to the jam.
The step that matters
Boil gently until the jam is clear and comes away from the pan. Boiling too hard or too long can scorch the sugar and fruit, darkening the color and giving a burnt taste. Gentle, steady heat lets the jam thicken evenly while keeping its color and fresh fruit 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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