Why it works: Sugar and red currant 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 ↓
Cherry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stones from the cherries and boil the pits in a little water to extract flavor.
In a preserving pan, combine the sugar with the cup of water or red currant juice.
Make the jam
Boil the sugar and water/juice to form a syrup for about 10 minutes.
Add the cherries to the syrup and boil quickly until it reaches the jelly point, about 40 minutes.
Jar
Pour the jam into jars, cover with brandy paper, then with vegetable parchment.
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 + red curranttop 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
- Ripe cherries
- Provide the fruit, flavor and bulk that make up the jam.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it set and keep.
- Water or red currant juice
- Dissolves the sugar into a syrup that the cherries cook in.
The step that matters
Boiling to the jelly point. Sugar and fruit set into jam only when enough water has evaporated and the mixture reaches the right concentration. Stopping too early leaves runny jam, while boiling too long can darken the flavor and make it stiff.
“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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