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 ↓
To Make Any Kind of Sweet Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar and vinegar together for 7 to 8 mornings.
Pour the mixture over the fruit each morning.
Boil the spices in the vinegar daily.
On the last morning, boil the fruit in the vinegar until clear.
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.
-
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
-
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,386 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,187 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
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 pickle and soaks up the sweet-sour syrup over time.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pickle and helps preserve the fruit.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
- Spices
- Add aroma to the syrup as they steep in the vinegar.
The step that matters
Boil the fruit until clear. Heat softens the fruit's cell walls, so a long boil turns it mushy while a short one leaves it opaque and firm. Repeated soaking in sugar syrup slowly draws water out of the fruit and replaces it with sugar.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon):
- Allspicefits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Clovethe original
- Cardamomfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, 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.
More sweet pickles recipes
You might also like
Cinnamon Rolls71 recipes
Clove Cake53 recipes
Cinnamon Cake42 recipes
White Cake431 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.