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Dessert

Brandied Cherries

A preserve of sweet cherries steeped in brandy and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Brandied Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Select the largest sweet cherries, leaving the stems on.

  2. Combine 2½ cups sugar with as little water as possible to make a syrup.

  3. Pour the syrup over the cherries.

  4. Let the cherries sit overnight.

Cook and jar

  1. Place the cherries in a preserving kettle. Heat slowly.

  2. Boil the cherries for about 8 minutes.

  3. Remove the cherries with a perforated skimmer.

  4. Boil the syrup for 15 minutes. Add the brandy to the boiling syrup. Remove from heat.

  5. Pour the mixture over the hot cherries.

  6. Seal the jars.

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 + 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

Sweet cherries
Provide the fruit that is cooked and preserved, keeping its shape and juiciness in the syrup.
Sugar
Makes the syrup that sweetens the cherries and helps preserve them.
Brandy
Adds alcohol and flavour, and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the cherries gently and remove them before reducing the syrup. Overcooking softens the cherries and breaks their skins, so they lose shape. Lifting them out with a skimmer first keeps them whole while the syrup thickens separately.

“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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