Name: Sweet Pickled Peaches
Ingredients: ½ peck peaches; 2 lbs. brown sugar; 1 pint vinegar; 1 oz. stick cinnamon; Cloves

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 Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

Boil sugar, vinegar, and cinnamon twenty minutes.

Prepare the peaches

Dip peaches quickly in hot water, then rub off the fur with a towel.
Stick each peach with four cloves.

Cook the peaches

Put into syrup, and cook until soft, using one-half peaches at a time.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

124Calories

2 gProtein

1 gFat

30 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Peach	1 medium (150g)	59
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

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together280 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Peaches: Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the spiced syrup as it cooks.
Brown sugar: Sweetens the syrup and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its tang.
Cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and flavor to the syrup.
Cloves: Add aromatic spice that flavors the peaches as they cook.

The step that matters

Cook until soft, one-half batch at a time. Cooking in small batches lets each peach sit evenly in the hot syrup and soften fully. Overcrowding cools the syrup and leaves some fruit firm and unevenly flavored.

Swap the peach

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

Vanillafits better
Quincefits better
Figfits better
Peachthe original

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

Cinnamon Rolls71 recipes

Peach Ice Cream64 recipes

Peach Fritters55 recipes

Clove Cake53 recipes

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Sweet Pickled Peaches