Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Brandt Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Cut the cherry stalks short and prick the cherries with a needle.
Sprinkle sugar over the cherries.
Make the syrup
Make enough syrup to cover the cherries and scald them in it over heat.
Let the cherries sit overnight, then scald them again.
Transfer the cherries to a jar.
Boil the syrup until very thick, adding more sugar if necessary.
Finish
Pour the thick syrup into the jar with an equal amount of brandy.
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.
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 is preserved and flavoured in the syrup and brandy.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, when boiled down, thickens it and helps preserve the fruit.
- Brandy
- Adds alcoholic flavour and helps preserve the cherries once combined with the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup until very thick. Sugar concentration determines how thick the syrup gets and how well it preserves the fruit. Syrup that is not boiled down enough stays thin and may not keep the cherries stable, so it should be reduced until very thick before the brandy is added.
“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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