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Dessert

Sweet Peach Pickle

A sweet pickle made by boiling peaches in vinegar and sugar syrup with cloves, cinnamon, mace, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 Peach Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup and cook the peaches

  1. Boil one quart of vinegar, four pounds sugar, one ounce cloves, cinnamon bark and a few blades of mace for ten minutes.

  2. Add eight pounds peaches and cook until tender.

Pack and seal

  1. Take peaches and place in jars.

  2. Boil syrup until thick and pour over the peaches.

  3. Seal jars tightly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

160Calories
3 gProtein
1 gFat
39 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Peach1 medium (150g)59
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Macenot in our table0

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

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 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

Peaches
Form the main body of the pickle and soften as they cook until tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup as it boils down.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick before pouring it over the peaches. As water evaporates, the sugar and vinegar become more concentrated, so the syrup thickens, coats the fruit, and helps keep it preserved.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

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