Name: Spiced Fruit
Ingredients: 3 pounds sugar; 1 pint good vinegar; 1 teacup broken cinnamon; 1 tablespoon whole cloves; a little mace; peaches (about 1 peck)

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 Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and mace in a kettle.
Simmer slowly for 15 to 20 minutes.

Cook the fruit

Pare the peaches and add them to the kettle.

Jar and seal

Once done, transfer the mixture to small jars.
Cover the jars with egg papers.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + peachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Clove + peachtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 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

Sugar: Sweetens the preserve and thickens it as it cooks down.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Peaches: Provide the fruit base and most of the body of the preserve.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma and spice flavour.
Cloves: Add a strong, aromatic spice flavour.

Swap the mace

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

Allspicefits better
Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

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