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Dessert

Spiced Cherries

A preserve of cherries simmered in a syrup of sugar, cider vinegar, 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 Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

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

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil to create a syrup.

Cook and pour

  1. Add the cherries and cook until the skins break.

  2. Remove the cherries and continue boiling the syrup until it thickens.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the cherries.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

Cherries
Provide the fruit body and tender texture once their skins break during cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates in boiling, thickens the syrup.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Cinnamon bark
Contributes warm, sweet aroma and flavor to the syrup.
Whole cloves
Contributes pungent, aromatic flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Remove the cherries before thickening the syrup. Cherries left in the pot while the syrup boils down keep cooking and turn soft and mushy. Removing them lets the syrup reduce on its own, so the fruit stays intact.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, 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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