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Dessert

To Preserve Cherries

This recipe preserves cherries in a syrup of red currant juice and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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

  1. If desired, remove the stones from the cherries carefully to keep them whole.

  2. In a pot, combine the cherries, red currant juice, and sugar.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook the syrup

  1. Skim off any foam for about 20 minutes.

  2. Add the cherries to the boiling syrup.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

  4. Remove from heat and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  5. Repeat the boiling and resting process 3 to 4 times.

Finish and seal

  1. Transfer the cherries to glasses or wide-mouthed bottles.

  2. Boil the syrup for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the cherries.

  4. Seal the jars with a bladder and leather or cork. Seal the jars.

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. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Form the bulk of the preserve and hold their shape when cooked gently in syrup.
Red currant juice
Adds tartness and fruit flavour to the syrup, balancing the sweetness.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens and thickens the syrup, and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Repeated boiling and resting of the cherries. Sugar must penetrate the fruit gradually. Boiling too hard or too long can break the cherries apart, while stopping too early leaves the syrup too thin to preserve them.

“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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