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Fruits Confits a L'eau-de-vie

Preserved cherries soaked in brandy and sweet syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruits Confits a L'eau-de-vie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Remove the stems from the cherries and place them in a jar.

  2. Pour boiling water over the cherries and let them drain.

Make the confit

  1. Once dry, add the cherries to a jar with brandy and a syrup made from equal parts sugar and water.

  2. Add a stick of cinnamon and whole cloves to the jar.

  3. Store the jar in a cool, dry place away from sunlight.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 softens and absorbs the syrup and brandy flavours.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic aroma and flavour and helps preserve the cherries.

The step that matters

Drying the cherries after blanching. Cherries must be fully dry before they go into the brandy and syrup. Surface water dilutes the liquid, which can weaken preservation and encourage spoilage.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, cinnamon. 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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