Skip to main content
Dessert

Spiced Fruits

Fruit preserved in a spiced sugar and vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Tie the spices in a bag.

  2. Boil the spices in the vinegar and sugar.

  3. Skim the mixture well.

  4. Add the fruit.

  5. Boil until scalded and tender.

  6. Remove the fruit.

Pack and syrup the fruit

  1. Pack the fruit carefully in stone jars.

  2. Boil the syrup for five more minutes.

  3. Pour the syrup over the fruit.

  4. The next day, pour off the syrup.

  5. Boil the syrup again.

  6. Pour the syrup back on the fruit.

  7. Repeat the process for three days.

  8. Keep the spice bags in the syrup.

  9. Place one spice bag on top of each jar of fruit.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + cassiatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Clove + cassiatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 preserve and softens to tender texture during boiling.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Mixed whole spices
Infuse the syrup with aroma and warm flavor as they simmer.

The step that matters

Repeating the syrup pouring over three days. Returning the boiled syrup to the fruit each day lets the sugar slowly penetrate the pieces, so they become clear and keep well instead of drying out or fermenting.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, cassia. 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 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes