Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach Sweetmeats

Peach sweetmeats are preserved peaches boiled with sugar and peach stone kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Peach Sweetmeats

Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Sweetmeats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the peaches.

  2. Halve the peaches.

  3. Weigh the peaches.

  4. Crack half of the peach stones.

  5. Blanch the kernels.

Make the syrup

  1. Layer the peaches with sugar in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2-3 hours until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a kettle with the kernels.

  4. Boil until the fruit is clear.

Can

  1. Put the fruit in cans.

  2. Boil the syrup a little longer.

  3. Strain the hot syrup over the fruit.

  4. Cover immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit, which becomes tender and clear when cooked in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, drawing out its juice, forms the syrup that preserves it.
Peach stone kernels
Add a bitter, almond-like aroma to the fruit and syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until the fruit is clear. Boiling long enough to make the fruit clear shows it has taken up syrup; stopping too early leaves it opaque and firm, while overboiling breaks the fruit down and makes it mushy.

“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.

You might also like

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipesPeach IcePeach Ice16 recipes