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Dessert

Brandy Peaches

Peaches cooked in sugar syrup, then finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Brandy Peaches

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 ↓

Brandy Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Rub the rind from the peaches with a clean, thick flannel.

  2. Prick each peach down to the stone with a large fork and score along the seam.

Make the syrup

  1. In a porcelain kettle, mix the sugar with the water.

  2. Heat the mixture until the sugar is melted, then boil and skim until no more scum rises.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the peaches and cook uncovered in the syrup until a straw penetrates them.

  2. Remove the kettle from the heat and take out the fruit with a wooden spoon, draining it over the kettle.

  3. Mix the best white brandy with the syrup and boil together for ten minutes or more.

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.

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.

  1. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 that softens in the syrup and carries its flavour.
Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the water to form the syrup that sweetens and preserves the fruit.
White brandy
Adds alcoholic aroma and flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
Egg white
Clarifies the syrup by binding to scum so it can be skimmed off.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling syrup. Impurities from the sugar and fruit rise as scum; removing them until none appears keeps the syrup clear and clean-tasting. Skimming too early or too little leaves cloudiness and off flavours.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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