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Preserve

Sweet Apple Pickle

A preserve of halved apples cooked in brown sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves, then canned while hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Apple Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Insert one whole clove into each apple half.

Cook and can

  1. Bring the mixture to a slow boil and let it cook for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Can the mixture while hot.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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

Sweet apples
Provide the bulk of the pickle and soften into a tender, chunky texture during long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps thicken the syrup as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and helps preserve the pickle.
Stick cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the apples and syrup.

The step that matters

Long slow simmer. Cooking for 3 to 4 hours at a slow boil lets the sugar and vinegar concentrate and the apples soften evenly. Too fast a boil can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot and break up the fruit.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

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