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Dessert

Brandy Peaches

A preserve of ripe peaches simmered in sugar syrup and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Select ripe peaches that are not soft.

  2. Drop peaches in lye or soda water to remove fuzz.

  3. Wipe the peaches with a coarse towel.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a thick syrup by combining ½ pound sugar and ½ pint water in a pot.

  2. Add the peaches to the syrup and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. If the syrup is too thin after removing the peaches, add more sugar.

  4. Boil until thick.

Jar and finish

  1. Place the peaches in a jar.

  2. Pour over an equal measure of syrup and 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.

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. 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

Ripe peaches
Fruit flesh that softens slightly in the syrup and takes on its sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and thickens the syrup as water boils off.
Brandy
Adds its own aroma and flavour to the finished peaches.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar. A syrup that stays thin will taste weak and will not cling well to the peaches, so check its thickness before jarring.

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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