Name: Spiced Gooseberries
Ingredients: twelve pounds fruit; one pint vinegar; eight pounds sugar; one tablespoon of cloves; one tablespoon cinnamon

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 ↓

Spiced Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

Combine gooseberries, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.
Cover berries with water and let them cook a long while.
Add vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.
Cook down until like jelly.

Seal and serve

Seal in jelly glasses.
Serve with hash.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

65Calories

0 gProtein

0 gFat

16 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Fruit	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,187 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Gooseberries (in the method): Supply the fruit and natural pectin that help the jam set.
Sugar: Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken as it cooks down.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Cloves: Add a warm, pungent spiced aroma.
Cinnamon: Adds a warm, sweet spiced aroma.

The step that matters

Cook down until like jelly. The jam sets only when enough water evaporates to concentrate the sugar, pectin and acid. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while cooking too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the clove

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

Allspicefits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Clovethe original
Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, 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.

Cinnamon Rolls71 recipes

Clove Cake53 recipes

Cinnamon Cake42 recipes

White Cake431 recipes

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Spiced Gooseberries