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Dessert

Spiced Raisins

A preserved fruit made by boiling raisins in a spiced syrup of sugar, vinegar, bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stems from the raisins, leaving the fruit intact.

Make the spiced syrup

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

  2. Tie the bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, and mace in a cheesecloth bag and drop it into the syrup.

  3. Bring the syrup to a boil.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the raisins to the boiling syrup and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer the raisins to pint jars.

  3. If desired, thicken the syrup by boiling it further.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Raisins
Provide the main fruit body, which plumps and softens as it simmers in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, as it dissolves and concentrates, forms the thick syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the raisins in the syrup. Boiling the syrup before adding the raisins brings it to temperature so the fruit cooks evenly. Boiling longer concentrates the sugar and thickens the syrup, so the timing affects the final texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, vinegar, clove, 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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