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Dessert

Sweet Pickled Peaches, Plums

Peaches are pickled in a sugar and vinegar syrup with cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Peaches, Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches or rub the down off with a coarse towel, leaving the skins on.

Make the syrup and cook the peaches

  1. In a pot, boil the sugar and vinegar with the cinnamon for 5 minutes.

  2. Add a few peaches at a time, inserting one or two cloves into each peach.

  3. Cook until the peaches can be easily pricked with a fork, then remove them to a jar.

  4. Continue adding and cooking the remaining peaches.

Finish and seal

  1. Boil the syrup down to half its original quantity and pour it over the peaches.

  2. Seal the jars while hot.

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. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Peaches
Make up the fruit that softens during cooking and takes on the syrup's flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavor and helps preserve it.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds a pungent, spiced aroma that infuses the peaches.

The step that matters

Cook each batch until the peaches just yield to a fork. Undercooked peaches stay firm and absorb little syrup, while overcooked peaches turn soft and mushy. Pricking with a fork checks tenderness before the fruit is moved to the jar.

Swap the peach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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