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Raspberry Cordial

A sweet raspberry cordial made by mashing raspberries, boiling the juice with sugar, and adding spirits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and spirit work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Mash the raspberries and strain through a flannel bag.

Sweeten and finish

  1. Sweeten the juice with sugar and boil for 10 to 15 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  2. Let the mixture cool completely.

  3. Add half the quantity of the juice in spirits or brandy.

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. Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 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

Raspberries
Provide the main flavour, colour and fruity acidity of the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the raspberry juice.
Spirits or brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and carries its aroma.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before adding the spirits or brandy. Alcohol evaporates quickly when hot, so adding it to warm syrup wastes strength and aroma. Cooling first keeps the spirit's character in the finished cordial.

“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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