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Dessert

Sweet Pickles

A fruit pickle made by cooking cherries, pears, quinces, and cling peaches, then preserving them in a sweet syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cook cherries, pears, quinces, and cling peaches in plain water until tender.

  2. Drain the fruit and reserve the cooking liquid.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the reserved liquid, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves to make a syrup.

  2. Pour the syrup over the fruit.

  3. Let it sit for two days, draining it each day.

Finish and store

  1. On the third day, boil the syrup until it thickens.

  2. Add the fruit to the syrup.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Place the sweet pickles in jars for storage.

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. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pear + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the syrup thicken and preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickles their tang and helps preserve them.
Cherries
Supply the main fruit flavor and texture in the pickles.
Pears
Add mild sweetness and a tender, soft texture to the pickles.
Quinces
Add firm texture and a fragrant, tart flavor to the pickles.
Cling peaches
Add juicy body and sweet fruit flavor to the pickles.

The step that matters

Draining and resting the fruit in the syrup. Draining the fruit each day and then boiling the syrup concentrates it and helps the fruit firm and absorb sweetness without breaking down. Skipping or rushing this rest can leave the fruit soft and the syrup thin.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, quince, 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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