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Dessert

Sweet Apples, Pickled

A pickled apple dish made with sweet apples, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Apples, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the apples, vinegar, and sugar.

  2. If the vinegar does not cover the apples, add a little more or dilute with water if it's too strong.

  3. Season with whole cloves and bits of cinnamon.

  4. Boil slowly until the apples are tender.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet apples
Provide the fruit that softens during slow simmering and absorbs the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the apples and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whole cloves
Aromatic spice that flavors the pickling liquid and apples.
Cinnamon
Warm aromatic spice that flavors the pickling liquid and apples.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the apples are tender. Gentle simmering softens the apples through without breaking them apart. Boiling too hard can turn the fruit mushy before the flesh is evenly tender and the spices have infused.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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