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Preserve

Pickled Peaches

Peeled peaches preserved with sugar and vinegar, spiced with mace, cinnamon and cloves, then sealed in jars.

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

Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches and weigh them.

  2. For every pound of fruit, use ½ pound of sugar.

  3. Layer the peaches and sugar in a preserving kettle.

  4. Slowly bring to a boil.

Make the syrup

  1. For every six pounds of fruit, add 1 pint of vinegar.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon each of ground mace, cinnamon, and cloves tied in muslin.

  3. Pour the vinegar over the peaches and boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the fruit and spread it on a flat dish.

  5. Boil the syrup for 15 minutes until thick.

Pack and seal

  1. Put the fruit in glass jars, pour the boiling syrup over it, and seal.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Firm white peaches
Provide the fruit that softens slightly and absorbs the syrup's flavour while keeping its shape.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and forms the thick, sweet syrup, also helping preserve it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and spiced flavour to the syrup.
Ground cloves
Contributes strong aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
Ground mace
Contributes a delicate warm aroma and spiced flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to thickness. Boiling the syrup for the full 15 minutes concentrates the sugar and vinegar so it thickens. Too short a boil leaves a thin syrup that may not preserve the fruit well or cling to it in the jars.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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