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Dessert

Spiced or Pickled Cherries

A preserved cherry condiment made by pickling fresh cherries with vinegar, sugar, cinnamon bark, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Spiced or Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Pack the cherries in glass fruit jars, using wooden splints to keep them submerged.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, cinnamon bark, and cloves.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a covered stoneware vessel and let it cool.

  4. Remove the heads of the cloves to prevent discoloration of the fruit.

Pour and seal

  1. Pour the cooled mixture over the cherries.

  2. Repeat this process for three consecutive days.

  3. Strain the vinegar if desired, then seal the jars as you would with other 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Fresh red cherries
Provide the fruit that softens slightly and absorbs the spiced vinegar flavor.
Pickling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the fruit and gives it a sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickled fruit.
Cinnamon bark
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Removing the clove heads. Clove heads left in the liquid can darken the fruit over the repeated soaking days, so they should be removed before the liquid is poured over the cherries.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

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