Skip to main content
Dessert

Sweet Pickle Peaches

Peaches are pickled in a sweet vinegar syrup with cloves, mace, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Pickle Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Powder the cloves, mace, and allspice, and mix well.

  2. To each pound of fruit, add one-quarter pound of sugar and one-half cup of vinegar.

Cook

  1. Boil all ingredients together until the fruit is tender.

  2. Remove the fruit from the syrup and place on dishes.

  3. Let the syrup cook thoroughly.

Jar and cover

  1. Put the fruit in jars and pour the syrup over them.

  2. Cover the jars when cool.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Peach + allspicetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Form the main fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet, sharp syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavor and helps preserve it.
Mixed spices
Add warm, aromatic flavor to the syrup and fruit.

The step that matters

Boil until the fruit is tender. Boiling softens the peaches so they absorb the syrup, but overcooking can break them down. Stop once the fruit is tender so it holds its shape.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, vinegar, clove, allspice. 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.

You might also like

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipes