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Dessert

Brandied Morella Cherries

A preserve of ripe Morella cherries sweetened with sugar candy and soaked in French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and cherry work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 300 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandied Morella Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

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

Fill and seal

  1. Add 4 ounces of sugar candy to each bottle.

  2. Fill the bottles completely with French brandy.

  3. If desired, add cherry or apricot kernels, or a small amount of cinnamon for flavor.

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Morella cherries
Provide the fruit that softens and flavors the brandy as it steeps.
Sugar candy
Adds sweetness and draws flavor out of the fruit into the liquid.
French brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid that keeps the fruit submerged and flavorful.

The step that matters

Cork the bottles tightly. A tight seal keeps air out and holds the alcohol in, so the fruit stays intact and does not shrivel or spoil while it steeps.

Swap the cherry

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

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