Skip to main content
Dessert

Sweet Pickled Damsons

A sweet pickled preserve made from damsons, sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Damsons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer damsons and spices alternately in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Boil the sugar and vinegar together in another kettle. Skim off any foam.

Pickle over four days

  1. Pour the hot vinegar over the fruit and spices.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 1 day.

  3. Pour off the vinegar the next morning and scald it again.

  4. Return the scalded vinegar to the fruit for another day.

  5. Scald the vinegar again on the third day.

  6. Pour the scalded vinegar over the fruit.

  7. Simmer the fruit and vinegar together for a few moments on the fourth morning.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Damsons
Provide the fruit that is pickled, absorbing the spiced vinegar and sugar syrup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fruit and balances the sweetness.
Cloves
Add warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon stick
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Repeated scalding of the vinegar. Each time the vinegar is poured off and reheated, it must be brought to a hot scald before returning to the fruit. Heating the liquid repeatedly helps it penetrate and preserve the fruit, while keeping the fruit intact requires care not to overcook it.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes