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Brandied Peaches

Peaches are scalded in sugar syrup and finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Brandied Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Select firm white peaches and peel them carefully.

  2. In a porcelain-lined kettle, melt 2 pounds of sugar in 3 quarts of water.

  3. Weigh the peaches and scald them in batches until tender, about 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the peaches and place them on a platter.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup using half the weight of peaches in sugar and 1/2 cup of the first syrup for every pound of fresh sugar.

  2. Bring the syrup to a boil, then let it settle before skimming.

  3. Boil the syrup again and scald the peaches in it for about 5 minutes before transferring to jars.

  4. Boil the syrup down for 10 to 20 minutes until thick, then skim again.

Jar and seal

  1. Drain the syrup from the jars and fill them with the thick syrup.

  2. Top off each jar with 4th-proof French brandy and seal.

  3. If desired, add 6 peeled peach kernels to each pint jar.

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. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  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

White peaches
Provide the fruit, whose flesh softens and absorbs syrup as it scalds.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, concentrated in the syrup, thickens it and helps preserve the peaches.
French brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the peaches and syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup down until thick. Boiling off water concentrates the sugar, which thickens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit. Syrup that is too thin leaves the peaches watery and less stable in the jars.

Swap the peach

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

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