Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Brandy Peaches
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peaches
Drop fresh clingstone peaches in boiling water for 1 minute.
Remove with a perforated ladle and place in cold water.
Rub with a rough towel to remove the skins.
Make the syrup and cook
Prepare a syrup with 1 pound of sugar for each pound of fruit and enough water to dissolve it.
Cook the peaches in the syrup for 15 minutes.
Remove the peaches from the syrup and place on dishes to cool.
Finish with brandy
Boil the syrup down to half and add an equal quantity of brandy.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh clingstone peaches
- The main fruit, which softens and takes on the sweet syrup as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, when boiled down, thickens it into a coating for the fruit.
- Old peach brandy or french brandy
- Adds alcohol, aroma and a warm flavour to the reduced syrup.
The step that matters
Blanch the peaches for only 1 minute. A brief dip in boiling water loosens the skins without cooking the flesh. Leaving the peaches in longer softens the fruit, so it can turn mushy before it is cooked in the syrup.
“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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