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 Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit and syrup
Core and peel the apples, pears, and peaches.
Prepare the syrup by boiling the sugar in the vinegar until clear.
Stick whole cloves into the fruit, spaced ¾ inch apart.
Cook and jar
Add the fruit to the syrup a little at a time and boil until tender but not breaking.
Remove the fruit with a skimmer and place in jars.
Pour the hot syrup over the fruit in the jars.
Re‑scald the syrup if it threatens fermentation and turn the fruit in the jars to keep it hot.
Spiced vinegar option
For spiced vinegar, boil the spices in vinegar for 10 minutes, then add sugar and finish as above.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,536 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Clove + appletop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,774 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit by binding water.
- Vinegar
- Provides acidity that gives the pickles their tang and helps preserve them.
- Fruit
- Forms the body of the pickles and takes on flavour from the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the fruit until tender but not breaking. Fruit cooked too long softens past the point of holding its shape, while undercooked fruit stays firm and resists absorbing the syrup. Cooking in small batches keeps the temperature even and the pieces intact.
Swap the clove
The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, mace, allspice, apple):
- Clovethe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Gingerfits less well
- Cardamomfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, mace, allspice, apple. 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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