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Brandied Fruits
Take equal quantities of ripe and sound fruit, such as apricots, peaches and plums, and prick them several times with a fork through to the stones. Put loaf sugar in a lined vessel, allowing one pound of sugar to one pound of fruit, pour in a small quantity of water, just about as much as the sugar will absorb, and place it over the fire until small transparent bubbles rise to the top. Put the mixed fruits into the syrup, and simmer gently at the side of the fire until just beginning to soften, then take it off, as the fruits must still remain firm. Leave them in the syrup until cold, or until the following day, then take them out, and place on a wire-sieve to drain. Boil the syrup until somewhat thickly reduced, and, when it is cold, mix with it an equal quantity of pale brandy. Place the fruit in jars or glasses, and pour the syrup over them.
A classic alcohol preserve rather than a canned one: the fruit is candied lightly, then held in a syrup fortified with brandy. Two things decide whether it works — pulling the fruit off the heat while it is still firm, and using a full-strength brandy so the finished syrup has enough alcohol to keep.
- Do not cook the fruit softThe fruit should be lifted at the first sign of yielding, when a skewer meets slight resistance. Timing varies with the size and ripeness of the fruit; a few minutes at a bare simmer is often enough, and anything longer and they collapse into the syrup during storage.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken up for use. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent, weight for weight — one pound of sugar to one pound of prepared fruit.
- "A lined vessel"Period copper or iron pans were tinned inside because acid fruit strips the metal. Use stainless steel or enamelled cast iron; a bare aluminium pan will give a metallic edge to the syrup.
- "Small transparent bubbles rise to the top"This is the sugar syrup as it comes to the boil, judged by eye; the original gives no temperature. Add just enough water to wet the sugar thoroughly and stir only until it dissolves.
- "At the side of the fire"On a coal range, the cooler edge of the plate. On a modern hob it means the lowest setting, or a heat diffuser — the syrup should barely move.
- Pricking through to the stonesThe punctures let syrup in and stop the skins splitting. Peaches are better blanched and peeled first, since the skins toughen and slip off unattractively in the jar; apricots and plums keep their skins.
- The brandy"Pale brandy" means an ordinary unsweetened grape brandy, not a flavoured or cream liqueur. Mixing equal parts reduced syrup and brandy roughly halves the spirit's strength; the sugar and the alcohol together are what keep the fruit. Diluting it further, or using a low-proof "brandy flavoured" product, defeats the method.
- Add the brandy coldStated in the original and worth repeating: heat drives off alcohol. The syrup must be fully cool before the brandy goes in, and the fruit cool before the syrup is poured over.
- Jars and keepingFill clean jars so the fruit is fully submerged, top with a lid and refrigerate. This is not a heat-processed preserve, so treat it as a refrigerator condiment rather than a shelf-stable one, and discard anything that ferments, clouds or gasses. The flavour is best after a month; 3 lb of fruit fills roughly three pint jars.
- ServingA few pieces with their syrup over ice cream, rice pudding or plain sponge, or alongside roast duck, ham or game. The syrup alone is good over a slice of pound cake.
Fruits put down in sugar and spirit are one of the oldest ways of holding summer stone fruit through winter, and many European kitchen traditions have a version — the French fruits à l'eau-de-vie, the German Rumtopf, the brandied peaches that appear in English and American receipt books throughout the nineteenth century. The technique is straightforward chemistry: sugar draws water out of the fruit while alcohol makes the surrounding liquid inhospitable to spoilage, so no boiling water bath is required. Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, included such a preparation in his collection. His book appeared in 1896, and the casual instruction to work "at the side of the fire" is a reminder that a cook of the period worked with hot and cool zones rather than dials.