Why it works: Cranberry and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cranberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
Make a strong isinglass jelly and let it cool.
Mix the cooled jelly with double the amount of cranberry juice.
Sweeten and set
Sweeten to taste and boil the mixture.
Strain it into a mold and let it set.
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.
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Cranberry + sugartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Isinglass
- Sets the juice into a firm, tender gel as it cools.
- Cranberry juice
- Provides the liquid base and the tart cranberry flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and balances the cranberry's tartness.
The step that matters
Sweeten to taste and boil the mixture. Isinglass must be fully dissolved and the mixture hot enough to set evenly. Boiling after sweetening also helps the sugar dissolve completely, so the jelly sets clear and without grainy spots.
“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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