Why it works: Cherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,301 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Cherry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the gelatin in cherry juice instead of cold water.
Add the lemon juice, sugar, and boiling water.
Sweeten to taste.
Seal in jars or tumblers.
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.
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Cherry + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,301 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cherry + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,598 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
Swap the cherry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar):
- Orangefits better
- Limefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Cherrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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