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Clear Jellies, and Pieces Monties

This is a clear cherry jelly made with brandy, sugar, and cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sugar 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 ↓

Clear Jellies, and Pieces Monties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Seal the bottles tightly and let them sit for 1-2 months.

  2. Separate the cherries from the brandy and measure the brandy.

Make the syrup

  1. Add 4 ounces of pounded sugar to every pint of brandy and stir until dissolved.

  2. Strain the mixture 2-3 times through a flannel bag until clear.

  3. Pour the clear syrup over the cherries for use.

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. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar 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

Brandy
Forms the liquid base and preserves the cherries while carrying their flavour into the syrup.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the syrup and dissolves into the brandy to give it body.
Cherries
Supply the main fruit flavour and colour of the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Straining until clear. Sugar must be fully dissolved before straining, and repeated filtering through flannel removes fine solids, so the syrup stays clear rather than cloudy.

“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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