Skip to main content
Dessert

Prune Jelly

A gelatin dessert made from stewed prunes, sugar, and gelatin, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Prune Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Stew the prunes until soft.

  2. Strain the juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Place the juice in a double boiler.

  2. Add sugar and softened gelatin to the juice.

  3. Let it simmer.

  4. Add the pitted prunes.

  5. Cook for 10 minutes.

  6. Pour into molds.

Set and serve

  1. Set on ice.

  2. Serve cold 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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main fruit flavor and body to the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tart, deep flavor of the prunes.
Gelatin
Sets the strained juice into a firm, sliceable gel as it cools.

The step that matters

Add the softened gelatin to the juice. Gelatin must dissolve completely in the warm juice, or it leaves specks and uneven set. Prolonged vigorous boiling can also weaken its gelling power, so keep the mixture gently warm.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes