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
Remove the stones from some of the cherries and blanch them.
In a large pot, combine the cherries, sugar, and blanched stones.
Boil gently until the jam separates from the pan.
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 natural pectin and acid that give the jam body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, with heat, helps it thicken and keep its set.
The step that matters
Boil gently until the jam separates from the pan. Boiling too hard or too briefly changes the sugar concentration and water content, so the jam may scorch or stay runny. Gentle heat with stirring reduces moisture evenly and protects the 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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