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Orange Jelly

A fruit jelly made from oranges, lemons, gelatin, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Orange Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak gelatin in ½ cup of water.

  2. Boil 3 pints of water and sugar together, skimming well.

  3. Dissolve the soaked gelatin in the mixture.

Clarify and set

  1. Add orange juice, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. Boil until it jellies, then pour into molds.

  4. Strain off any remaining scum and add to the molds.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Gelatin
Forms the firm, wobbly gel structure that sets the jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup that the gelatin sets in.
Egg whites
Attract impurities as they cook, so skimming them off leaves a clearer jelly.
Oranges
Provide the main juice, supplying flavor and aroma to the jelly.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Boil until it jellies, then pour into molds. Boiling must be stopped at the right point. Gelatin only sets properly when the mixture is concentrated enough, and overboiling can weaken the gel's ability to set firmly as it cools.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, lemon, sugar, egg. 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.

More orange jelly recipes

Seville 17Cake 13Florida 8Baskets 8Lemon 4China 3 See all 328 →

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