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Dessert

Blackberry Cherry Preserves

A preserve made from mashed berries and cherries simmered with spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Cherry Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Make the berry juice

  1. Cover mashed berries with boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes.

  2. Press the mixture again.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. For each quart of juice, add ½ teaspoon each of mace, cinnamon, pepper, and white mustard.

  5. Cook down to the desired quantity.

  6. Add pure vinegar to achieve the required strength and consistency.

  7. Bottle and seal while hot.

Make the cherry syrup

  1. Boil cherries with sugar until soft.

  2. Strain the cherries.

  3. To each quart of this liquor, add 1 teaspoon each of mace, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon of cloves.

  4. Boil the mixture with the syrup.

  5. Strain the mixture.

  6. Add the strained liquid to the crushed fruit pressed through a sieve.

Finish and bottle

  1. Boil until thick.

  2. Reduce with strong vinegar.

  3. Bottle the preserve.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mashed berries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour for the preserve base.
Stoned cherries
Add body and fruit flavour, softening under boiling sugar into the preserve.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it boils down, helps the preserve thicken and keep.
Pure vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the final product.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Cooking the mixture down concentrates sugar and fruit solids so it sets to the right consistency. Stopping too early leaves it runny and more prone to spoiling, while overcooking makes it stiff and sticky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sugar, ginger, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sugar, ginger, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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