Home › The World's Kitchen › Raspberries Au Kirsch
Raspberries Au Kirsch
Place a pint fresh raspberries in a bowl, add two tablespoons kirsch and two tablespoons fine sugar, mix well and use.
A macerated fruit dish that depends entirely on the quality of the berries and the kirsch. A few notes on quantities and handling.
- Pint of raspberriesA dry pint is roughly 12 oz, or about 2 heaping cups. That serves two generously or four alongside cake or cream.
- Fine sugarThis means superfine (caster) sugar, which dissolves without grit. Granulated will work if you give it 20 minutes to draw juice from the fruit; you can also pulse granulated sugar briefly in a spice grinder.
- KirschA dry, unsweetened cherry brandy, not a sweet cherry liqueur or the maraschino syrup sold for cocktails. Substituting a sweetened product means cutting the sugar sharply.
- Mix well, but barelyRaspberries collapse under stirring. Fold two or three times with a rubber spatula or simply tilt the bowl to coat, then leave them alone.
- Resting time"Use" implies immediately, but 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature lets the sugar draw out juice and the kirsch perfume the fruit. Beyond an hour the berries turn soft and weep.
- Don't wash if you can avoid itRaspberries absorb water and go mushy. Pick over rather than rinse; if you must rinse, do it in a colander under a fine spray and drain thoroughly on a towel.
- ServingSpoon over vanilla ice cream, unsweetened whipped cream, or plain sponge cake, and pour the syrup that collects in the bowl over the top.
Kirsch — from the German Kirschwasser, "cherry water" — is a clear spirit distilled from cherries, historically associated with the Black Forest, Alsace and German-speaking Switzerland, where the fruit was abundant and the eau-de-vie tradition well established. Its flavor is dry, with a faintly bitter almond note generally attributed to the crushed stones, and it became a common flavoring in European pastry kitchens: it appears in Black Forest cake, in cheese fondue, and, as here, poured over fruit. Au kirsch is simply the French menu formula for a dish dressed with the spirit.