Skip to main content
Dessert

To Prefer Vc Apricots

A method for preserving apricots in sugar syrup with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Prefer Vc Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Remove spots from apricots and ensure they are not too ripe.

  2. Add a little water to your preserving pan.

  3. Warm the pan.

  4. Add half a dozen apricots.

  5. Warm until the skins can be easily removed.

  6. Spread the peeled apricots on a dish.

  7. Sprinkle the apricots with fine sugar.

  8. Repeat until all apricots are prepared.

Make the syrup and cook the apricots

  1. Combine 1 pint of water and 1¼ pounds of sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Skim the mixture well.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat.

  5. Let the mixture stand for a while.

  6. Add half of the apricots to the syrup.

  7. Gently boil the apricots in the syrup.

  8. Remove each apricot one by one.

  9. Spread the apricots on a dish.

  10. Repeat with the remaining apricots.

  11. Boil the syrup again.

  12. Add a little more sugar to the syrup.

  13. Boil the syrup twice more until it becomes thick and clear.

Jar and store

  1. Once cooled, pour the syrup over the apricots in glass jars.

  2. Cover the jars with brandy-soaked paper.

  3. Store the jars in a cool, dry place.

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
Provide the fruit that is softened, sweetened and preserved in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, helps preserve it by binding water.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps inhibit spoilage on the paper covering the jars.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup repeatedly until thick and clear. Sugar concentration must rise high enough to draw water out of the fruit and inhibit microbial growth. Stopping early leaves a thin syrup that spoils more easily.

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.

More preserved apricots recipes

in Jelly 3 See all 45 →

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesApricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes