Skip to main content
Dessert

Cranberry Relish

A sweet and tart relish made from cranberries, raisins, oranges, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cranberry Relish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cranberries, vinegar, sugar, ginger, raisins, clove, and cinnamon in a pot.

  2. Grate the rind of the oranges and add the juice to the mixture.

  3. Cook over medium heat until it reaches a marmalade consistency.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit base and bulk of the relish.
Sugar
Sweetens the relish and, as it cooks, helps thicken it toward a marmalade texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the fruit flavor.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook until marmalade consistency. Cranberries contain natural pectin, and sugar concentrates as liquid evaporates. Cooking long enough lets the mixture set into a spreadable marmalade. Stopping too early leaves it loose, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes