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Dessert

Cherry Jelly

A gelatin-based dessert made with preserved cherries, cherry juice, and sugar, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cherry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the can of preserved cherries.

  2. Place the cherries in a mold.

Make the jelly

  1. Heat the cherry juice and dissolve the gelatin in it.

  2. If needed, add more sugar to taste.

  3. Pour the gelatin mixture over the cherries.

  4. Set the mold on ice until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cherry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + cherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the cherry juice into a firm, sliceable jelly that holds its shape.
Preserved cherries
Supply fruit pieces and flavor suspended throughout the set jelly.
Cherry juice
Provides the liquid base and main cherry flavor that the gelatin sets.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin in the hot juice. Gelatin must fully dissolve in heated liquid before pouring, because undissolved granules leave gritty spots and uneven setting in the jelly.

Swap the cherry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, cream. 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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