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Preserved Raspberries

A method for preserving raspberries by boiling with sugar, cherry and currant juices, then sealing with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Preserved Raspberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Pick and place raspberries in a preserving pan with an equal weight of clarified sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture about a dozen times.

  3. Skim the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pan until the next day.

  5. Drain the fruit.

Fill and seal the jars

  1. Place the fruit into jars.

  2. Add cherry juice to the syrup.

  3. Boil again.

  4. Pour over the raspberries.

  5. Add currant juice to each jar.

  6. Let cool.

  7. Seal with brandy and tie down.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cherry + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cherry + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Red raspberries
Provides the main fruit body and flavour of the preserve.
Clarified sugar
Draws out moisture and preserves the fruit by creating a concentrated syrup.
Cherry juice
Adds acidity and extra fruit flavour to the syrup.
Currant juice
Adds tartness and a deeper fruit aroma to each jar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture about a dozen times. Repeated boiling and cooling cycles let the sugar penetrate the fruit gradually, so it keeps its shape and does not collapse or ferment.

Swap the cherry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, currant, 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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