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Dessert

Spiced Cherries

A preserve of cherries, sugar, vinegar, and spices made by boiling and canning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Spiced Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Mix cherries and sugar in a bowl and let stand overnight.

Make the preserves

  1. Pour off the juice for three mornings, boiling and skimming each time.

  2. Pour the boiling juice over the cherries each time.

  3. On the fourth time, add whole spices and cider vinegar, then boil down with enough juice to cover the cherries.

  4. Add the cherries, bring to a boil, and can.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Provide the fruit that forms the body and flavor of the preserves.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, when boiled down, helps thicken them and preserve the fruit.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling down the juice with the cherries. Boiling the syrup down until it covers the cherries concentrates the sugar and thickens the liquid. Too little boiling leaves the preserves runny and less safe to store, while over-boiling can make them overly stiff or caramelized.

“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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