Skip to main content
Preserve

Spiced Grapes

A preserved grape confection made with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, vinegar, and grape juice.

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

Spiced Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Press grapes from skins and heat the pulp.

  2. Pass the heated pulp through a colander to remove seeds.

  3. Mix the pulp with the skins and measure the mixture.

Cook and jar

  1. In a pot, combine the mixture with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, vinegar, and grape juice.

  2. Boil very slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Pour into sterilized jars and cover with paraffin.

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. 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 pulp and skins that form the body and flavor of the spread.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it dissolves and thickens, helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Powdered cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and spice flavor.
Powdered cloves
Contributes strong aroma and spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil very slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering lets water evaporate and the sugar and fruit pectin thicken the mixture. Boiling too hard can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot and change the flavor, so stir and keep the heat low.

Swap the grape

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

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

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

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding64 recipesCornmeal mushCornmeal mush12 recipes