Skip to main content
Dessert

Peaches in Brandy

Peaches preserved in brandy with clarified sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Peaches in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Wipe the peaches with a cloth to remove the down.

  2. Prick each peach with a small fork to the stone.

  3. Place the peaches in water and heat on moderate fire until nearly boiling.

  4. When softened, transfer the peaches to cold water for 15 minutes.

  5. Change the water and let them stand for another 15 minutes.

  6. Drain the peaches on clean towels and let them dry.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Arrange the peaches in a glass jar.

  2. Boil clarified sugar to a little pearl stage (1 part sugar to 2 parts water).

  3. Add double the quantity of brandy to the peaches.

  4. Mix and strain the mixture through a flannel bag 2-3 times.

  5. Cover the peaches with the liquid and seal the jars with bladders tied down.

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

Peaches
Provide the fruit whose flesh softens and absorbs the syrup and brandy flavour.
Clarified sugar
Forms a syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
Brandy
Adds aroma and alcohol that help preserve the peaches and flavour the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar to a little pearl stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration; too thin a syrup gives weak sweetness and poorer preservation, while overcooking makes it thick and hard to combine with the fruit.

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.

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipes