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Fruits a L'eau-de-vie—brandied Fruits

Preserved apricots or peaches in sugar syrup and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Fruits a L'eau-de-vie—brandied Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wipe apricots with a towel.

  2. Prick them to the stone with a large pin.

  3. Boil in fresh water over low heat until soft.

  4. Remove with a skimmer and place in cold water.

  5. Let the fruits drain and dry without crushing them.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water.

  2. Clarify over heat.

  3. Add the drained fruit to the boiling syrup.

  4. Let sit overnight.

  5. Remove the fruit.

  6. Let it drain again.

  7. Boil the syrup again.

  8. Ensure it does not turn yellow.

Finish and store

  1. Mix in double the amount of brandy with the syrup.

  2. Pour the syrup over the arranged apricots in a jar.

  3. Seal tightly.

  4. Store.

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. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  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

Apricots
Form the fruit that is softened, then preserved in the syrup and brandy.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, dissolved into syrup, helps preserve it.
High proof brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the fruit and contributes aroma.

The step that matters

Keep the syrup from turning yellow. Overheating or over-boiling sugar syrup can caramelise it and turn it yellow, changing the flavour and colour of the finished fruit. Keep the heat controlled when boiling it again.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

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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