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Dessert

Sweet Plum Pickles

A preserved plum pickle made with vinegar, sugar, spices, and cinnamon, boiled and sealed in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Plum Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the plums.

  2. Prepare the jars.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, spices, and hot water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Boil for one hour.

Pack and heat

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the plums in the jars.

  2. Heat the jars for three consecutive mornings.

Finish and seal

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil on the last day.

  2. Add the plums to the boiling mixture.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes.

  4. Skim the plums into cans.

  5. Pour thick syrup over the plums.

  6. Seal the cans.

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. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Plums
Firm, slightly unripe fruit holds its shape through repeated heating and syrup soaking.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the pickles.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup that coats and sweetens the plums.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.
Cloves
Contributes strong, warm aroma and flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Heating the jars over three mornings. Repeated gentle heating lets the hot syrup slowly penetrate firm plums without breaking them down, while the full boil on the last day heats the fruit and syrup thoroughly before sealing.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Plumthe 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.

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