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Dessert

Brandy Peaches, No. 1

Peaches preserved in a syrup of sugar, water, and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Brandy Peaches, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Select soft, yellow peaches free from defects and freshly gathered.

  2. Place the peaches in a pot.

  3. Cover the peaches with weak lye.

  4. Turn any peaches that float.

  5. Leave the peaches in the lye for 1 hour.

  6. Remove the peaches from the lye.

  7. Wipe the peaches with a soft cloth to remove the dirt and skin.

  8. Soak the peaches in cold water.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. For every pound of fruit, use 1 pound of sugar.

  2. Add enough water to cover the fruit.

  3. Boil the syrup.

  4. Skim the syrup.

  5. Add the peaches to the syrup.

  6. Let the peaches cook for 15 minutes.

  7. Remove the peaches from the syrup.

  8. Place the peaches on dishes to cool.

  9. Reduce the syrup by boiling until thickened.

Bottle and brandy

  1. Once the peaches are cool, place them in bottles.

  2. Cover the peaches with equal parts syrup and French brandy.

  3. Seal the bottles securely with corks or bladders to prevent the brandy from losing strength.

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. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Soft yellow peaches
Provide the fruit that is softened by lye and then cooked in syrup.
Weak lye
Softens the peach skins so they can be wiped away easily.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, boiled into syrup, preserves it.
French brandy
Adds alcohol and flavor to the finished peaches and helps preserve them.

The step that matters

Reduce the syrup until thickened. Boiling down the syrup concentrates the sugar so it coats the peaches and helps preserve them. Too little reduction leaves the syrup thin and the fruit less stable in the bottle.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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