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Mint Jelly

A jelly made from snow apples and fresh mint leaves, sweetened with equal weight sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Mint Jelly

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mint Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare the apples.

  2. Quarter the apples.

  3. Place apples in a preserving kettle.

  4. Barely cover with water.

  5. Add enough washed mint leaves to give a good mint flavor, then cover.

  6. Cook until apples are soft.

  7. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Add heated sugar.

  3. Add more mint leaves if desired.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Skim the mixture.

Pour and set

  1. Pour into glasses.

  2. Let stand in a sunny window for 24 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  2. Apple + minttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Snow apples
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that helps the jelly set.
Fresh mint leaves
Add the aroma and fresh mint flavor that defines the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with pectin and acid, helps the jelly set and keep.

The step that matters

Boil after adding the sugar. The sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach setting point. Boiling too briefly leaves the jelly runny, while overboiling can darken it and make it stiff.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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