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Dessert

Spiced Peaches

Peaches cooked in a spiced vinegar and sugar syrup, then jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Pare and halve the peaches if they are very large.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and sugar to make a rich syrup.

  2. Add broken cinnamon, cloves, mace, and ginger root to the syrup and bring to a boil.

Cook and jar

  1. Once boiling, add enough peaches to cover with syrup and let them simmer for about 10 minutes.

  2. Carefully remove the peaches with a spoon and place them into jars.

  3. Repeat the process with the remaining peaches in the same syrup.

  4. After all peaches are cooked, make fresh syrup and pour it over the peaches in the jars.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit that softens in the syrup and carries its flavour.
White sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the peaches by drawing out moisture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Simmering the peaches. Simmering only until they are heated through keeps the fruit firm and whole. Overcooking breaks down the pectin and cell structure, leaving them soft and mushy in the jars.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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