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Apricots in Brandy

Preserved apricots soaked in brandy after boiling and sugaring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apricots in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Boil the apricots in water until they start to boil, then remove and let cool.

  2. Boil the apricots a second time, then let them stand again.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the clarified sugar until it reaches a small pearl stage, about 5 or 6 times.

Combine and seal

  1. Remove from heat and pour the brandy over the apricots in jars or bottles.

  2. Seal the jars or bottles 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. 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
Form the fruit base and absorb the brandy and sugar flavour as they steep.
Clarified sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup that coats the fruit.
Brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid and adds aroma and flavour to the fruit.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar to a small pearl stage. Sugar syrup cooked to a small pearl stage is concentrated enough to thicken slightly and help preserve the fruit. Undercooked syrup stays thin and watery, while overcooked syrup turns sticky and hard.

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.

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