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Dessert

Pickled Peaches

A pickled peach preserves made with peaches, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Wash the peaches with a coarse cloth and insert one clove and one piece of cinnamon into each peach.

  2. Pack the peaches closely in a stone crock.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the fruit.

  2. Add 4 to 6 pounds of sugar per gallon of vinegar to the boiling vinegar.

  3. Add cloves, a cinnamon stick, and a small quantity of mace tied in a thin muslin bag to the mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture for 5 to 7 minutes.

Pour, rest and store

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the peaches and cover closely.

  2. Boil again for the next two days, pouring the hot mixture over the peaches each time.

  3. Cover tightly.

  4. Store in a cool cellar.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Clove + macetop 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. Cinnamon + macetop 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the peaches and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Peaches
The fruit that softens in the hot syrup and absorbs its sweet, spiced flavour.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the peaches and syrup.
Cinnamon sticks
Add sweet woody aroma that flavours the peaches and syrup.

The step that matters

Repeated hot pouring over the peaches. Pouring the boiling syrup over the fruit on each of the following days keeps the peaches hot and submerged, helping the syrup penetrate and the fruit stay well preserved. Skipping or cooling the syrup can leave the fruit under-preserved.

Swap the mace

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

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

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