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Dessert

Brandled Morella Cherries

Cherries preserved in brandy with sugar, optionally flavored with kernels or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cherry and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 551 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandled Morella Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Cut off half the length of the stalks from the cherries.

  2. Gently drop the cherries into clean, dry quart bottles with wide necks.

Fill and seal

  1. Leave enough space in each bottle for 4 ounces of sugar candy.

  2. Fill the bottles completely with French brandy.

  3. Cork the bottles tightly to prevent the fruit from shriveling.

  4. Optionally, add a few cherry or apricot kernels or a small portion of cinnamon for flavor.

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. Cherry + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together551 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + cherrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Ripe cherries
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the brandy and sugar as it steeps.
Pounded white sugar candy
Adds sweetness and draws flavor into the brandy as it dissolves slowly.
French brandy
Acts as the alcoholic liquid that preserves the fruit and carries its flavor.

The step that matters

Cork the bottles tightly. Alcohol and sugar preserve the fruit, but an loose seal lets air in and evaporates the brandy, so the cherries can shrivel and spoil.

Swap the cherry

The recipe marks cherry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, cinnamon. 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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