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Recipe for Brandying
One pound of sugar to each pound of fruit; boil the fruit until soft, make the syrup with as little water as possible. Take the peaches and lay separately on a dish, boil the syrup again until of the right consistency; put the peaches in the jar, then add one part brandy to two parts of syrup, stir and fill up the jar.
CHAPTER VI
A bare-bones formula for brandied peaches, written for cooks who already knew what a preserving syrup looked like. The stray "CHAPTER VI" at the end is a printer's catchline, not part of the method.
- The hinge: add the brandy off the heatThe brandy goes into the jar with the syrup, never into the boiling pan. Heating it drives off the alcohol that does most of the preserving and all of the flavouring.
- ProportionsEqual weights of fruit and sugar, then one part brandy to two parts finished syrup. Four pounds of peaches with four pounds of sugar fills roughly three quart jars and needs somewhere near a pint of brandy, depending on how far the syrup has been reduced.
- "Boil the fruit until soft"The recipe says soft, but in practice it is safer to poach gently until a skewer meets slight resistance, perhaps five to ten minutes for halves. Fruit taken to genuine softness tends to collapse when it is lifted out.
- "The right consistency"The recipe gives no temperature or test; aim for a syrup that sheets thickly off a spoon. Under-reduced syrup thins further once the fruit weeps and the preserve turns watery.
- PeelingThe recipe is silent on skins. Many period recipes for brandied peaches used peeled fruit, blanched briefly so the skins slip; halves also cook more evenly than whole fruit.
- Brandy gradeThe recipe does not specify a spirit; a standard 80-proof brandy works. A weaker spirit will give a more dilute finished liquor against a pound of sugar per pound of fruit.
- This is not a canning processThere is no boiling-water bath here, and none is implied. The keeping power comes from sugar and alcohol, so fill hot jars to the brim with fruit fully submerged, seal, and store cool and dark; refrigerate after opening and discard anything that shows mould or fizz.
- RestingGive the jars at least a month before broaching. The syrup and brandy need time to penetrate the fruit, which is otherwise merely a poached peach sitting in liquor.
Brandying fruit was one common way an American household turned a glut of summer peaches into something that would appear on a winter table, and cookbooks of this period often print the formula in shorthand. The technique belongs to the same family as the tutti-frutti crock, in which successive fruits were layered into a jar of brandy and sugar through the season and drawn on at Christmas. Peaches dominate because they were abundant, bruised easily, and travelled badly, so the surplus had to be dealt with at home. Brandied peaches are often said to have been served alongside roast meats or ham as well as with dessert, the sugar and spirit playing the part a fruit relish plays now.