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Dessert

Fruit Jelly

A gelatin dessert with layers of sliced bananas, oranges, chestnuts, figs, and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Fruit Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup cold water.

  2. Add the juice of 3 lemons, 2 cups sugar, and 1 pint boiling water.

Assemble and set

  1. In a mould, arrange layers of sliced bananas, oranges, chopped chestnuts, figs, and dates.

  2. Strain the jelly over the layered fruit and cool.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Banana + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  5. Chestnut + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly once it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemons
Add acidity and a bright flavour that cuts the sweetness.
Bananas
Add soft texture and sweetness to the layered fruit.
Dates
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Strain the jelly over the layered fruit and cool. The jelly must be liquid enough to pour through the fruit, yet cool enough not to melt or cloud it. Gelatine sets as it cools, so the fruit stays suspended in place once firm.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, banana, orange, chestnut, fig, dates):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, banana, orange, chestnut, fig, dates. 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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