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Dessert

Brandied Cherries

A preserve of very ripe black cherries steeped in brandy, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,362 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandied Cherries

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Place very ripe black cherries in a large wide-mouthed bottle.

  2. Add 2 pounds of loaf sugar and 1 quart of brandy.

  3. Add a few cloves.

Make the syrup

  1. Bruise a few more cherries.

  2. Simmer the bruised cherries with sugar.

  3. Strain the juice.

Combine and store

  1. Add the strained juice to the cherries in the bottle.

  2. Cork the bottle tightly.

  3. Store the bottle in a warm, dry place.

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 + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 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 + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Black cherries
Provide the main fruit flavor and the juice that becomes the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the fruit, helping preserve it.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the fruit and carries flavor into the juice.
Cloves
Add a warm, spicy aroma to the finished cherries.

The step that matters

Cork the bottle tightly. A tight seal keeps air out of the bottle. The alcohol and sugar work together to preserve the fruit, but air exposure can still let it spoil.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe 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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