Skip to main content
Dessert

Sweet Grape Pickles

A pickled grape preserve made with vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Sweet Grape Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Clip grapes from the main stem with scissors and pack them snugly in a stone jar.

  2. Pour water over the grapes, then pour it off to measure the amount needed to cover them.

  3. Add that amount of vinegar to the jar.

Make the syrup

  1. For every gallon of vinegar, add 7 lbs of sugar.

  2. Bring the vinegar and sugar mixture to a boil.

  3. Add whole cloves and cinnamon bark to the boiling mixture.

Pour and rest

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the grapes in the jar.

  2. Set aside for 3 to 4 days.

  3. Boil the mixture again.

  4. Pour the hot mixture over the grapes.

  5. Repeat this process a third time if needed.

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. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Grape + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Grape + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Grapes
Provide the fruit that is packed and soaked, giving the pickle its main flavour and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the grapes and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps preserve the grapes in the syrup.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
Cinnamon bark
Adds sweet, woody aroma and warm spice flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup over the grapes. The syrup must be fully boiling when poured so the heat helps soften the grapes and reduces the risk of spoilage. Repeated pourings over several days let the syrup penetrate and firm the fruit.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, clove, 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

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