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Mixed Brandied Fruit
Remove stems of two pounds sound (not too ripe) strawberries; remove stems also, if any, from two pounds sound, ripe raspberries. Cut stems of two pounds sweet cherries in halves, place cherries at bottom of a glass jar, sprinkle over a half pound powdered sugar, place raspberries on top, sprinkle a half pound sugar over, add raspberries and another half pound sugar. Fill jar with brandy, cork tightly, put away to infuse for thirty days, and fruit will then be ready for use.
Six pounds of fruit, a pound and a half of sugar and enough brandy to cover — the method is sound, but the text as printed contradicts itself and needs reading carefully before you start.
- The layering is garbledThe instructions call for strawberries, raspberries and cherries at the top, then describe cherries, raspberries, raspberries and three half-pounds of sugar. Read it as three layers of two pounds each — cherries, then strawberries, then raspberries — with a half pound of sugar over each.
- Powdered sugarIn a book of this period powdered sugar means finely milled granulated sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar, which carries cornstarch and will cloud the brandy. Use ordinary granulated or superfine (caster) sugar.
- "Cut stems of cherries in halves"Not the cherries — the stems, trimmed to stubs so they still hold the fruit together and give something to lift them out by. Leave the pits in; they hold their shape and contribute a faint almond note.
- How much brandySix pounds of fruit in a wide-mouth jar takes roughly 1.5 to 2 quarts to cover. Use a plain brandy of at least 40 percent alcohol; the fruit will release juice and dilute it, and anything weaker leaves too little alcohol to preserve the jar.
- Keep everything submergedThis is the hinge. Fruit that floats above the liquid will mold and spoil the whole jar. Weight the top with a small saucer or a zip-top bag of brine, and top up with brandy over the first week as the fruit settles.
- "Cork tightly"Use a glass jar with a plastic-lined or glass lid; the acid and alcohol will corrode bare metal. The jar does not need processing or sealing — the brandy does the preserving — but it should be full, closed and kept in a cool dark cupboard.
- Thirty days is a minimumAfter a month the fruit is edible, but the syrup is still thin and raw-tasting. Three months is better, and the jar improves for a year. Turn or gently swirl it every few days early on to dissolve the sugar.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; with six pounds of fruit and the brandy needed to cover it, expect to need a jar of a gallon or more. Spoon the fruit over ice cream, rice pudding or plain cake, and treat the brandy left behind as a cordial -- it is the better half of the recipe.
Fruit laid down in spirit and sugar is one of the oldest forms of preserving that needs no fire, and versions of it turn up across Europe: the German Rumtopf, built up layer by layer through the summer as each fruit comes into season, the French cerises à l'eau-de-vie, and the English brandied cherries that appear in household books from the eighteenth century onward. The principle is straightforward — enough alcohol and enough sugar together make an environment in which spoilage organisms cannot work — and it explains the insistence here on fruit that is sound and "not too ripe," since soft or bruised berries collapse into mush and cloud the liquor. A mixed jar like this one belongs to the era before domestic refrigeration, when a cook who wanted strawberries in December had to have made the decision in June.