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 ↓
Cherry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Remove the stones from the cherries, keeping them as whole as possible, and preserve the kernels.
Make the jam
Combine the red-currant juice or water with the sugar in a preserving pan and boil to create a syrup.
Add the cherries and kernels to the syrup and simmer gently until the cherries are tender but not broken.
Test the jam by pouring a little on a cold plate; it should jelly almost immediately.
Pot and store
Pour the jam into jars, cover with paper dipped in brandy, and stretch tissue paper brushed with egg white over the top.
Store the jars in a cool, dry place.
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 + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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, flavour and body of the jam; keeping them whole gives a pleasing texture.
- Preserving sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps it set and keeps it preserved.
- Red-currant juice
- Adds natural acidity and pectin, which help the jam gel; water can be used instead.
The step that matters
Simmering the cherries. Cooking gently keeps the cherries tender but intact; boiling hard breaks the fruit down and can make the jam cloudy and mushy rather than set well.
“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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