Skip to main content
Dessert

Spice Grapes

A preserved grape dish flavored with grape juice, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Spice Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Remove the skins from the grapes, saving all the juice and pulp.

  2. Cook the pulp and juice over medium heat for 10-15 minutes to separate the seeds.

  3. Strain the pulp through a sieve, discarding the seeds.

  4. Add the grape skins to the pulp along with 1 cup of grape juice.

Make the spiced syrup

  1. In a separate bowl, combine 1 cup of vinegar, 3.5 pounds of sugar, crushed whole cloves, and stick cinnamon in gauze bags.

  2. Cook the mixture until thick enough to mold.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour into small jars, cover with brandied paper, and secure with cotton batting and paper.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Grape + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Grape + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit flavour, pulp and natural pectin for the thick texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the spread and thickens it as the mixture cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the mixture.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and spice flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook until thick enough to mold. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves a runny product that will not hold its shape, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesGrape SherbetGrape Sherbet32 recipes