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Dessert

Jelly of Iceland Moss

A jelly made from Iceland moss, lemon juice, and sugar, strained into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Jelly of Iceland Moss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Wash the Iceland moss in five changes of water.

  2. Soak the moss in a little cold water for 1 hour.

Make the jelly

  1. Stir the soaked moss into the boiling water and simmer until dissolved.

  2. Add the lemon juice and sweeten to taste.

  3. Strain the mixture into molds.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Iceland moss
Its natural polysaccharides thicken the liquid and set it into a jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tart lemon and the mild moss flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer until the moss has fully dissolved. The moss's gelling starches need heat and time to hydrate and dissolve completely. Undissolved pieces won't release their thickening power, so the jelly may set weakly or unevenly.

“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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