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Dessert

Spiced Cherries

Preserved cherries simmered with sugar, vinegar, 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 ↓

Spiced Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sugar over the cherries and let stand overnight.

Make the syrup

  1. The next day, bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Remove the cherries and add vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves to the juice.

  3. Boil down the mixture to a thick syrup.

Finish

  1. Return the cherries to the syrup and boil until clear.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Black cherries
Provide the fruit, which becomes tender and glossy as it cooks in the syrup.
Granulated sugar
Draws juice out of the cherries and, when boiled down, forms the thick sweet syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavor of the syrup.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes warm aromatic flavor that infuses into the syrup.
Powdered cloves
Contributes strong aromatic spice flavor that infuses into the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture to a thick syrup. Boiling concentrates the sugar and liquid as water evaporates, so the syrup thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it too dense and sticky.

Swap the clove

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