Why it works: Sugar and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,101 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Raspberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Gather fresh, ripe raspberries and remove them from the stalks.
Break the fruit slightly with a wooden spoon and place it in a large jar.
Cover the jar and place it in a saucepan of boiling water for 45 minutes to 1 hour to extract the juice.
Strain the fruit through a fine sieve or cloth to collect the juice.
Measure the juice and add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.
Make and set the jelly
Combine the juice and sugar in a preserving pan and boil gently until the jelly thickens.
Test the jelly by pouring a little on a plate.
Remove any scum that rises.
Pour the jelly into small pots, cover, and store in a dry place.
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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Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,101 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raspberries (in the method)
- Provide the flavour and the pectin-rich juice that gives the jelly its body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and firming the gel as it boils.
The step that matters
Boiling until the jelly thickens. Boiling drives off water and concentrates sugar and pectin so the juice sets when cooled. Stopping too early leaves a runny jelly, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour. Testing on a cold plate shows whether it is ready.
“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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