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Brandy Tutti Frutti

A preserved fruit mixture flavored with brandy and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brandy Tutti Frutti

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine 1 quart of brandy and 3 pounds of sugar in a 3-gallon jar, and stir frequently.

  2. Add 3 pounds of hulled strawberries and 3 pounds of sugar to the jar when the strawberries are ripe.

  3. Continue adding an equal weight of fruit and sugar as each fruit comes into season.

Add the fruit

  1. Add pitted cherries, cut plums, peeled and sliced peaches, and sliced apricots, then add sliced pineapple.

Store and stir

  1. Cover the jar closely and store it in a cool place.

  2. Stir the mixture every day until the jar is full.

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 + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Plum + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Plum + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apricot + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Plum + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid that keeps the fruit from spoiling during long storage.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit to form a syrup and preserves it through sweetness.
Strawberries
Add fresh fruit flavour and aroma to the brandy and sugar base.
Cherries
Contribute tartness and fruit flavour as they steep in the brandy syrup.
Peaches
Add soft texture and sweet, aromatic fruit flavour to the mixture.
Apricots
Add fruity aroma and sweetness that blends into the brandy syrup.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, plum, peach, apricot. 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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