Skip to main content
Dessert

Unpeeled Pickled Peaches

A pickled peach preserve made by boiling peaches with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Unpeeled Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Rub the fur off the peaches with a coarse cloth.

  2. Prick each peach with a fork.

  3. Heat enough water to cover the peaches until it almost boils.

  4. Remove the peaches from the water.

Make the syrup

  1. Add 3 pounds of sugar to the water.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes and skim.

  3. Add 3 pints of vinegar, 1 tablespoon each of allspice, mace, and cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon each of celery seed and cloves in thin muslin bags.

  4. Boil all together for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the peaches.

  6. Boil until they can be pierced with a straw.

  7. Remove the peaches with a skimmer.

  8. Spread them on dishes to cool.

  9. Boil the syrup until thick.

Pack and serve

  1. Pack the peaches in glass jars.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the peaches.

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. 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. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Fruit that is softened and flavored by the hot spiced syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the peaches.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Contributes sweet, warm aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until they can be pierced with a straw. Peaches must be heated just until tender; overcooking turns them mushy and makes them fall apart, while undercooking leaves them firm and less able to absorb the syrup.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

More pickled peaches recipes

Sweet 47Spiced 3 See all 189 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes