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 ↓
Sweet Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine the sugar and vinegar in a pot and heat until hot, skimming off any foam.
Cook and jar
Once boiling for 15 minutes, add the fruit and boil until about half cooked.
Transfer the fruit to jars and seal them tightly.
Spice by fruit
For peaches, add a little cinnamon and mace to the vinegar; for plums or dark fruit, add allspice or cloves.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,536 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 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
- Fruit
- Forms the body of the pickle and carries the sweet-sour flavour.
- Vinegar
- Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that offsets the vinegar and helps thicken the syrup.
The step that matters
Boiling the fruit until about half cooked. Boiling the fruit only until partly tender lets it absorb the hot syrup without turning mushy. Cooking it too long breaks down the flesh, so the pickle loses its shape and texture.
“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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