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Dessert

Sweet Pickle for Fruit

A sweet pickle made by boiling fruit with sugar, vinegar, and spices, then storing in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pickle for Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Prick damsons and plums with a needle.

  2. Wash peaches with a weak lye.

  3. Rub peaches with a coarse cloth to remove the fuzz.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine the sugar, cider vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the fruit.

  4. Repeat this process for two or three days.

Seal and store

  1. Seal the fruit in glass jars while hot for long-term storage.

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 + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Plum + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
White sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the syrup.
Fruit
Forms the body of the pickle and absorbs the spiced syrup as it sits.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced syrup.
Whole cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma to the spiced syrup.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, peppery aroma to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Repeating the hot pour over several days. Pouring the boiling syrup over the fruit repeatedly lets heat and sugar slowly penetrate and preserve the fruit, while the vinegar keeps spoilage organisms in check. Skipping or rushing the repeats can leave the fruit under-flavored and less well preserved.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, plum, apricot, 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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