Name: Sweet Pickle for Fruit
Ingredients: 1 quart of fruit (cling-stone peaches, damsons, plums, cherries, apricots, etc.); 1 cup white sugar; 1 large pint good cider vinegar; ½ ounce stick cinnamon; 1 tablespoon whole cloves; 1 tablespoon whole allspice

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Pickle for Fruit

Ingredients

1 quart of fruit (cling-stone peaches, damsons, plums, cherries, apricots, etc.)
1 cup white sugar
1 large pint good cider vinegar
½ ounce stick cinnamon
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon whole allspice

Directions

Make the syrup

In a pot, combine the sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.
Bring the mixture to a boil.

Pickle the fruit

Pour the hot mixture over the fruit.
Repeat this process for two to three days.
Seal the fruit in glass jars while hot for long-term storage.
Note: Only the fruit is to be eaten, not the liquid.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Plum + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Fruit: Is the main food being preserved and flavoured by the spiced vinegar syrup.
White sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and helps preserve the fruit.
Cider vinegar: Provides acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon stick: Adds warm aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole cloves: Adds warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.
Whole allspice: Adds warm, peppery aroma to the pickling liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, plum, apricot, sugar, cider, vinegar, cinnamon):

Clovethe original
Cardamomfits about as well
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, plum, apricot, sugar, cider, vinegar, 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.