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Brandied Cherries
Cut away with scissors half (only) the stems of five pounds sound, fresh, sweet cherries, place in a glass jar, fill up with cognac, tightly cork and put away to infuse for three weeks. Add a pound powdered sugar to every quart of brandy, cork jar, briskly shake, then after two months' infusion cherries will be ready to eat.
A straightforward spirit infusion that needs almost nothing but time and a jar that seals. The one thing worth getting right is the fruit itself: any split or soft cherry will cloud the brandy and turn the syrup muddy.
- Quantities and jar sizeFive pounds of cherries with their stems still half on will want a jar of at least a gallon; how much cognac it takes to cover depends on how tightly the fruit packs, so plan on a quart or more and top up until the fruit is under. Divide between two half-gallon jars if that is what you have, and keep the sugar in proportion — a pound of sugar per quart of brandy actually used.
- Why the stems stayTrimming the stems to half length rather than pulling them out leaves the fruit unbroken, which is presumably the point: a torn stem hole gives the flesh somewhere to collapse and the liquor somewhere to cloud.
- Cognac and proofUse a spirit at 40% ABV or above (cognac is bottled at a minimum of 40%); the alcohol is what preserves the fruit, and a weaker spirit — especially once sugar is added and dilutes it further — risks fermentation in the jar. An inexpensive VS cognac or plain brandy is right here.
- "Tightly cork"A modern screw-top or clamp-lid preserving jar does the job. Keep the fruit fully submerged; anything sitting above the liquid will discolour.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold today. Use superfine or ordinary granulated — the cornstarch in modern powdered sugar will leave a haze.
- The shake, and afterSugar added on top of cherries takes a while to dissolve; shake or invert the jar every few days for the first fortnight, not just once. Store in a dark cupboard at room temperature.
- PitsThe pits are left in, which is traditional and contributes a faint almond note over long steeping. They stay whole and intact in this method; do not crush or crack them.
- Yield and servingFive pounds of fruit and its liquor will fill several pint jars if divided for gifts. Serve the cherries over ice cream or with roast duck and game, and treat the strained liquor as a cordial or as the base of a cherry cocktail.
- KeepingKept covered in the spirit these should hold for a year or more, and are generally said to improve over the first months; the fruit softens gradually with age.
Fruit steeped in spirit is one of the oldest ways of keeping a short summer harvest, and cherries in brandy appear in European household books long before this one — the French cerises à l'eau-de-vie and the Italian tradition of cherries under grappa are the same idea, and the German Rumtopf is its layered cousin. Clipping rather than removing the stem is common in the French versions. The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, a longtime chef at Delmonico's in New York, gathered dishes from many countries for American cooks; it first appeared in 1906, so the 1929 date should be checked against the edition in hand. A preserve like this would have sat easily in the household repertoire of the period, sweet cherries having a season of only a few weeks.