Name: How We Cook IX Tennessee
Ingredients: two pounds brown sugar; seven pounds of fruit; three pounds of sugar; one pint of vinegar; black pepper; cloves; 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 ↓

How We Cook IX Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Take seven pounds of fruit, three pounds of sugar, and one pint of vinegar.
When boiling, put in the fruit.
Add a few cloves, spice, and some cinnamon.
Put these in a muslin bag.
Boil twenty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

71Calories

0 gProtein

0 gFat

18 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
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.

By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. 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).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Fruit: Forms the body of the dish and carries its sweet fruity flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness with a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the sweet syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves: Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, 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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How We Cook IX Tennessee