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Peaches Preserved in Brandy

A method of preserving peaches by layering them with sugar and brandy in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Peaches Preserved in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Gather peaches in dry weather.

  2. Wipe the peaches.

  3. Weigh the peaches.

  4. Carefully remove the stones without damaging the peaches.

Make the preserve

  1. Place peaches in a jar.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the peaches.

  3. Pour brandy over the fruit.

  4. Cover the jar tightly.

  5. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water.

  6. Heat the brandy to simmering, but do not boil.

  7. Carefully remove the peaches.

  8. Place the peaches in small jars.

  9. Pour the brandy over the peaches.

  10. Let the peaches cool.

Seal the jars

  1. Brush bladders or tissue paper with egg white.

  2. Seal the jars with the bladders or tissue paper.

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 becomes tender as it is gently heated in the brandy.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws moisture out, helping preserve it in the syrup.
Brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid, adding alcohol that helps keep the fruit and adding aroma.

The step that matters

Heat the brandy to simmering, but do not boil. Gentle heat softens the peaches and helps the sugar dissolve without driving off alcohol or breaking the fruit apart. Boiling would toughen the texture and evaporate the brandy.

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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