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Dessert

German Pickle

A pickle made by boiling damsons with sugar and spices, then preserving them in syrup.

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

German Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stick the damsons with a fork to prevent splitting.

  2. Weigh 1 lb of brown sugar for every 3 lbs of damsons.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the damsons briefly with the spices to make a syrup.

  2. Pour the syrup into a jar when cold.

Steep over three mornings

  1. Pour the syrup from the damsons for three mornings, heating it to boiling each time.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the fruit when nearly cold.

Finish and jar

  1. On the fourth morning, put the fruit into the jars and let it sit until done, but not overcooked.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit body and the tart flavour that the sweet syrup balances.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup, helping it coat and preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the syrup as it steeps into the fruit.
Cloves
Adds strong, pungent aroma that infuses the syrup and fruit.
Allspice
Adds warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Heating the syrup each morning without overcooking the fruit. Repeated boiling dissolves sugar and concentrates the syrup, but prolonged heat breaks down damson skins and flesh. The fruit should be heated only until tender so it keeps its shape.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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