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Spiced or Pickled Cherries

A pickled cherry preserve flavored with cinnamon bark and cloves.

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 ↓

Spiced or Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Pack and steep

  1. Pack cherries in glass jars, placing wooden splints across the tops to prevent floating.

  2. Combine vinegar, sugar, and spices in a pot and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a covered stoneware vessel and let it cool.

  4. Pour the cooled mixture over the cherries.

  5. Repeat this process for 3 consecutive days.

Strain and seal

  1. Strain the vinegar after the first boiling if desired to remove spices.

  2. Seal the jars as you would with other fruit, ensuring the syrup is cold before pouring.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 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

Fresh red cherries
Provide the main fruit, with flesh that absorbs the spiced vinegar syrup over time.
Pickling vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sourness and forms the syrup.
Whole cinnamon bark
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that flavors the syrup as it steeps.
Whole cloves
Contribute pungent, warm aroma that deepens the spiced flavor of the syrup.

The step that matters

Cool the syrup before pouring. Hot syrup softens the cherries and can cook them, spoiling their texture. Cooling it first keeps the fruit firm and reduces the risk of cracking jars when sealing.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, 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 vinegar, sugar, 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.

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