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Dessert

Fruit Jelly

A gelatin-based dessert made with lemon juice, sugar, wine, and assorted fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Add boiling water, lemon juice, sugar, and wine.

  3. Strain the mixture and stir in the cut fruits when it begins to harden.

Serve

  1. Pour into a border mold and serve ice cold with sweetened and flavored whipped cream piled high in the center.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Banana + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when unmolded.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly a softer, more pleasant set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Wine
Adds flavor and aroma to the jelly.
Oranges
Add fresh fruit flavor and texture suspended in the jelly.
Bananas
Add soft texture and mild sweetness to the set jelly.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit as the mixture begins to harden. If the jelly is still too liquid, the fruit sinks to the bottom; if it has set too firmly, the pieces will not distribute evenly. Stirring at the point of thickening suspends the fruit throughout.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, wine, orange, banana, fig):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, wine, orange, banana, fig. 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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