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Dessert

Brandied Peaches or Pears

Fruit preserved in a sweet syrup and brandy, then sealed in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Brandied Peaches or Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in enough water to make a syrup.

  2. Bring the syrup to a boil.

  3. Add the fruit and boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Carefully remove the fruit and let the syrup boil for 15 minutes until it thickens.

Finish and jar

  1. Add the brandy and remove the kettle from the heat.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the fruit and seal in glass jars.

  3. Peel peaches and pears before brandying; prick plums to prevent bursting.

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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup, providing sweetness and body as it thickens on boiling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and helps preserve the fruit once added off the heat.
Fruit
Peaches or pears that soften in the syrup and absorb its sweetness and brandy flavor.

The step that matters

Let the syrup boil for 15 minutes until it thickens. Boiling concentrates the sugar syrup, which thickens it and helps preserve the fruit. Removing the fruit first keeps it from breaking down while the syrup reduces.

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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