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Dessert

Preserved Raspberries

A method for preserving raspberries with sugar, cherry juice, currant juice, and brandy paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Preserved Raspberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Place raspberries and sugar in a preserving pan.

  2. Boil the mixture about a dozen times.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pan.

  5. Let it sit overnight.

Pack and seal

  1. Drain the fruit and transfer it to jars.

  2. Add cherry juice to the syrup.

  3. Boil again.

  4. Pour over the raspberries.

  5. Add currant juice to each jar.

  6. Let cool.

  7. Seal with brandy paper.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cherry + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 recipes

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

  5. Cherry + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Red raspberries
Provide the fruit that is preserved, with flavor and body held in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out water, forming a syrup that preserves it.
Cherry juice
Adds acidity and fruity flavor to the syrup.
Currant juice
Adds tart acidity and aroma to the preserved fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture about a dozen times. Repeated boiling and resting lets sugar penetrate the fruit gradually and thicken the syrup. Boiling too briefly or once can leave fruit that spoils or shrivels.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, currant, 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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