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Cherries in Brandy

Cherries in brandy are preserved by soaking them in brandy and raspberry juice.

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

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar-candy in the brandy.

  2. Add cherries until they are covered by the brandy.

  3. Stir in the raspberry juice to improve the color.

Steep the cherries

  1. Cover the mixture closely and let the cherries absorb the brandy.

  2. Add more brandy as needed until cherries are fully saturated.

  3. Keep the cherries covered with brandy and cork the jar tightly.

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

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

  3. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

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

White sugar-candy
Dissolves into the brandy to add sweetness to the liquid the cherries soak in.
Brandy
Acts as the soaking liquid that moistens and flavors the cherries as they absorb it.
Morelia cherries
Are the fruit being steeped, taking on sweetness and brandy flavor as they soak.
Raspberry juice
Adds color to the mixture, as the record notes it is stirred in to improve the color.

The step that matters

Keeping the cherries fully covered with brandy. Cherries left above the liquid can dry out and spoil, while fully submerged fruit absorbs the spirit evenly and keeps well.

Swap the raspberry

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

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