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Maraschino Sauce
2/3 cup boiling water 1/3 cup sugar 2 tablespoons corn-starch 1/2 tablespoon butter 1/4 cup Maraschino cherries, cut in halves 1/2 cup Maraschino syrup Mix sugar and corn-starch, add gradually to boiling water, stirring constantly. Boil five minutes, and add cherries, syrup, and butter.
A thickened cherry sauce for puddings, ices and steamed desserts. The proportions run very thick by modern standards, and the cherries themselves are not the product they once were.
- Cornstarch is heavy hereTwo tablespoons of cornstarch to two-thirds cup water plus a half cup syrup gives a thick, spoonable sauce that sets further as it cools. For a pourable sauce use one tablespoon, or thin the finished sauce with hot water or more syrup.
- Add the starch as a slurrySugar mixed dry with cornstarch separates the grains, but shaken into boiling water it can still lump. Whisk the sugar-starch mixture with a few tablespoons of cold water first, then stream it into the boiling water.
- Five minutes is for flavour, not thickeningCornstarch reaches full thickness within a minute of boiling. The longer boil cooks out raw starch taste, but prolonged hard boiling with acidic syrup will thin the sauce again; keep it at a bare simmer and stir.
- Maraschino syrupThe original meant the liqueur-soaked syrup from a jar of imported cherries. Modern jarred maraschinos are brined, bleached and sweetened with corn syrup and almond flavour, and the syrup is sweeter and blander. A tablespoon of maraschino or kirsch liqueur stirred in off the heat restores the intended character.
- Butter last, off the heatThe half tablespoon is for gloss and body. Add it after the pan leaves the burner and swirl rather than beat, so it emulsifies instead of separating.
- Cherries go in at the endThey are already fully preserved and will bleed colour and go slack if boiled. Fold them in with the syrup once cooking is finished.
- Yield and servingAbout one and a half cups. The recipe gives no serving suggestion; a sauce of this type would suit warm puddings or ice cream, and it thickens considerably as it cools.
Maraschino began as a clear cherry liqueur from Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, distilled from marasca cherries and their crushed stones, and by the mid-nineteenth century the fruit steeped in it was sold as a luxury garnish on European and American tables. Cookbooks of this period generally use "Maraschino cherries" to mean cherries packed in sweetened liqueur, sold by the jar at a grocer's and dear enough to be spent by the quarter cup, though domestic imitations were already appearing. American manufacturers substituted domestic Royal Anne cherries brined with sulphur dioxide, bleached and re-dyed, and Prohibition hastened the move away from alcohol, which is why the jarred cherry of today tastes of almond extract rather than cherry brandy. Sauces of this construction -- boiling water, sugar, cornstarch and a flavouring, finished with a small piece of butter -- were a common sweet-sauce template in American domestic-science cooking, varied by whatever fruit or syrup the cook had on hand.