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Dessert

Cherries in Brandy

A preserved cherry dessert made with brandy, raspberry or mulberry juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and raspberry work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol, which smells freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes. The science ↓

Cherries in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice and syrup

  1. Squeeze the raspberries or mulberries through a fine sieve to obtain clear juice.

  2. In a bowl, combine the brandy, juice, and sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved.

Fill and seal

  1. Prepare jars by placing the cherries inside.

  2. Pour the brandy mixture over the cherries.

  3. Add a little more sugar on top and seal the jars for winter storage.

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. Brandy + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

  2. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Brandy and sugar 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

Brandy
Alcohol that helps preserve the fruit and adds a warm, rich flavour.
Raspberry or mulberry juice
Adds the main fruity flavour and colour to the liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the liquid and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Cherries
Form the fruit base that soaks up the brandy and juice mixture.

The step that matters

Fully dissolve the sugar in the brandy and juice. Undissolved sugar stays as grains and does not sweeten the liquid evenly. Sugar that fully dissolves gives a uniform syrup that coats and preserves the cherries evenly.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. 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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