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Dessert

Sweet Pickles

A sweet pickle made from red currants, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Bring the vinegar and currant juice to a boil.

  2. Add the sugar and currants.

  3. Boil until it jellies.

Spice and pour

  1. Add the cinnamon tied in a bag and the whole cloves.

  2. Pour the mixture into earthen bowls.

  3. Boil for 1 to 1¼ hours to achieve the right consistency.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Red currant + curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Red currant + clovetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Red currant + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Red currants
Supply the main fruit flavor and the bulk of the pickle.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the pickle and helps it set as it thickens on cooking.
Strong vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Currant juice
Adds extra fruit liquid and tartness to the boiling base.
Stick cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma as it infuses the mixture.
Whole cloves
Contribute a pungent, warm aroma as they infuse the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil until it jellies. Sugar, fruit pectin and acid must concentrate together to set. Stopping too early leaves a runny pickle, while boiling too long makes it stiff and dark as the sugar overcooks.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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