Skip to main content
Dessert

Spiced Grapes

Preserved grapes flavored with sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

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 ↓

Spiced Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Press the pulp of the grapes out of the skins.

  2. Boil the pulp until the seeds loosen.

  3. Pass the mixture through a colander to separate the seeds.

  4. Weigh the pulp and skins together.

Cook and serve

  1. In a pot, combine the pulp, skins, brown sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

  2. Mix thoroughly and boil until somewhat thickened, stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Serve with meats.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the main fruit pulp and skins, which give the spread its body and fruity flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks down, helps the mixture thicken and turn glossy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until somewhat thickened, stirring to prevent burning. Sugar-rich fruit mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of a pot. Stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the sugars from caramelising too far, while boiling drives off water so the mixture thickens as it cools.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesGrape SherbetGrape Sherbet32 recipes