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Dessert

A Good Lemon Jelly

A dessert made by dissolving gelatine, sugar, and lemon juice in boiling water, then cooling into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Shutt, William E., Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

A Good Lemon Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak one package of gelatine in half a pint of cold water for two hours or more.

  2. Pour the gelatine mixture into one quart of boiling water, add a pint of sugar, and place in a double boiler.

  3. Stir until the sugar and gelatine are dissolved.

  4. Add half a pint of lemon juice and strain.

  5. Pour into molds.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

61Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
16 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Shutt, William E., Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly when it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity and the main lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine fully. Gelatine must dissolve completely in the hot liquid before it is poured into molds. Any undissolved granules will leave grainy specks and weak spots in the set jelly.

“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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