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Strawberry Cordial

A sweetened fruit cordial made by steeping strawberries in apple brandy and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the fruit

  1. Combine 1 gallon of apple brandy with 4 quarts of strawberries in a container.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours, then press the strawberries through a cotton bag.

  3. Add 4 more quarts of strawberries and let it stand for another 24 hours, repeating the pressing process.

Sweeten and finish

  1. For sweetening, boil 2 pounds of sugar with 1 pint of water and 1 whipped egg white until dissolved.

  2. Once cooled, mix 1 pint of syrup with 1 quart of the cordial.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Apple brandy + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple brandy + eggtop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple brandy
Acts as the base spirit that draws flavor and color out of the fruit.
Strawberries
Supply the main fruit flavor, color and aroma as their juices mix with the spirit.
Sugar
Sweetens the cordial and softens the sharp bite of the alcohol.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool before mixing. Adding hot syrup to the spirit can make the cordial cloudy and can drive off alcohol vapor. Cooling the syrup first keeps the cordial clear and lets the two blend evenly.

“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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