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Dessert

Prune Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from stewed prunes, sugar, lemon, wine, and brandy, set with gelatin and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Stew and strain

  1. Stew the prunes gently with sugar, lemon, Claret, and water until tender.

  2. Strain off the liquid, stone the prunes, and pass the fruit through a sieve to save the pulp.

  3. Crack the stones and add the kernels to the pulp.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in the reserved liquor, then heat until dissolved.

  2. Mix the dissolved gelatine with the prune pulp, then stir in the cherry brandy and red wine.

  3. Decorate a plain border mold with blanched almonds, then fill it with the prune mixture and set aside to firm up.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, turn out the jelly and fill the center with whipped 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Cherry brandy + red winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cherry brandy + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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 body and flavour of the jelly, and the pulp that gives it thickness.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid pulp into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the prunes and lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the stewed prunes.
Red wine
Adds depth of flavour and a deeper colour to the jelly.
Cherry brandy
Adds a fruity, aromatic liqueur note to the jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before mixing. Gelatine only sets when it is completely dissolved and then cooled. Undissolved granules leave a grainy, uneven jelly, so heat it until clear before combining it with the pulp.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cherry brandy, red wine, almond, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cherry brandy, red wine, almond, 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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