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Sweet-pickle Damsons

Sweet pickle of damsons made by boiling vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon and repeatedly pouring the syrup over the fruit.

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-pickle Damsons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the damsons

  1. Prick the damsons with a needle to prevent bursting.

  2. Place the damsons in a jar.

Pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon together.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the damsons.

  3. Let it stand for three days.

  4. Boil the mixture again.

  5. Pour it over the damsons.

  6. Repeat boiling and pouring every third day for a total of seven times.

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. 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

Damsons
Provide the fruit that is pickled, holding their shape when pricked and softened by the syrup.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving acid that keeps the pickling liquid stable over repeated boilings.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes sweet, warm aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pricking the damsons before pickling. Pricking the skins with a needle lets the hot liquid penetrate the fruit and prevents the skins from splitting and bursting, which would leave the fruit mushy and unevenly flavoured.

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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