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Dessert

Sweet Pickles

A preserved fruit pickle made with vinegar, cloves, cinnamon, and sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickle

  1. Layer peeled and sliced fruit in a jar with cloves and cinnamon.

  2. Pour scalded vinegar and sugar over the fruit.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  4. Pour off the liquid.

Cook and seal

  1. Boil the liquid for 5 minutes.

  2. Pour the boiled liquid back over the fruit.

  3. Let it stand for another 24 hours.

  4. Gently boil the fruit and syrup together for 30 minutes.

  5. Seal the jar.

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. Clove + quincetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cinnamon + quincetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the fruit and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps build a syrup that coats the fruit.
Sliced fruit
Forms the body of the pickle and absorbs the spiced, sweet-sour syrup.
Whole cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the liquid.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma and flavour to the syrup and fruit.

The step that matters

Gently boil the fruit and syrup together for 30 minutes. Boiling vigorously can break the fruit apart and make the syrup cloudy. A gentle simmer keeps slices intact while the fruit softens and absorbs the syrup.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Quincethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

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