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Dessert

Fruit Jelly

A molded dessert of plum and cherries set in wine or lemon jelly, served with whipped cream, almonds, and ladyfingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fruit Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Place the canned green gage plum in the center of a small mold.

  2. Surround the plum with red candied cherries.

  3. Pour the wine or lemon jelly over the fruit and set aside to harden.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream and finely chopped almonds on a bed of lady fingers.

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. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

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

  2. Plum + winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  4. Wine + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Wine + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wine or lemon jelly
Sets around the fruit to form the firm, sliceable body of the dessert.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, creamy texture that contrasts with the firm jelly.
Green gage plum
Provides the central fruit flavour and a soft, juicy bite inside the jelly.

The step that matters

Pouring the jelly over the fruit. The jelly must be liquid but not too hot or too cold when poured, so it covers the fruit evenly without cooking it or setting unevenly. Then it needs enough time to fully set before unmoulding.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, wine, cream):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, wine, 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.

More fruit jelly recipes

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