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Fruit in Brandy
First clarify as much sugar as will be required--allow one pound of sugar to every two pounds of fruit. Break the sugar into lumps, and dip them into cold water; this water will be sufficient for the clarifying process. Put the moistened sugar into a preserving-pan, heat it slowly, and after it comes to a boil, simmer gently. When beads form on the surface, the liquid is ready for the fruit; lay in two pounds of peaches, apricots, or plums, but only keep them in long enough to be softened; be careful they do not crack. Set them to cool for a few hours, then take out the fruit on a sieve to drain, and boil the syrup until it is thick; let it grow cold, and pour it, with an equal quantity of pale brandy, over the fruit, which should previously have been placed in glasses.
A straightforward alcohol preserve, but the original leans on sugar-boiling landmarks that no longer appear in modern recipes. The hinge is the fruit: it goes into hot syrup only long enough to soften and must never be allowed to split, or the pieces will collapse into the jar.
- Loaf sugar and the dipping trick"Break the sugar into lumps, and dip them into cold water" refers to hard cone or loaf sugar, which had to be cracked before use. With granulated sugar, simply add about 1/2 cup water per pound and heat slowly to dissolve; the original gives no water measure, so treat this as approximate.
- ClarifyingHere it amounts to bringing the moistened sugar slowly to a boil and skimming the scum that rises, a step needed because 19th-century sugar carried impurities. Period cookery more often clarified with beaten egg white or milk to gather that scum, though this recipe calls for neither. Modern refined sugar throws up little or nothing to skim.
- "When beads form on the surface"An old sugar-boiling landmark judged by eye: the syrup thickens and the bubbles cluster rather than break flat. The book gives no thermometer reading, and the old degrees of sugar boiling correspond only loosely to modern temperatures, so go by appearance. Boiling the syrup "until it is thick" at the end takes it somewhat further.
- QuantitiesOne pound sugar to two pounds fruit, then an equal volume of brandy to finished syrup. Two pounds of fruit with its syrup will fill roughly two pint jars, depending on the fruit and how closely it is packed.
- Preparing the fruitThe original gives no preparation beyond the warning that the fruit must not crack, and no timing; peeling and halving peaches, stoning apricots and pricking whole plums are modern conveniences rather than directions from the text. The recipe asks only that the fruit stay in the syrup long enough to soften, at a bare simmer rather than a boil.
- Pale brandyAny 40% ABV grape brandy or cognac works. The alcohol strength matters more than the label: after dilution with syrup the final liquid should still be strong enough to preserve, so do not substitute a low-proof fruit liqueur.
- Jars and storageUse sterilised jars with tight lids and keep the fruit fully submerged; anything above the liquid line will discolour and spoil. This is a preserve by sugar and alcohol, not a heat-processed canning method, so store it cool and dark and discard any jar that ferments, clouds or smells yeasty.
- WaitingThe original does not say, but brandied fruit is generally left at least a month before opening, and improves over several. The syrup thins as the fruit gives up juice.
Fruits preserved in spirit — fruits à l'eau-de-vie in French practice — were a standard part of the English store cupboard long before reliable glass-jar canning, and the method is given here as a general one, since it applies to any firm stone fruit that comes in glut. The logic is old and sound: sugar binds water, alcohol suppresses what sugar misses, and together they hold soft fruit through a winter without heat processing. "Pale" brandy was presumably specified so that the spirit would not stain the fruit.