Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Apple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Pare, core, and halve the apples without bruising them.
Weigh the apples and place their weight in sugar in a porcelain kettle with just enough water to dissolve it.
Cook and set
Boil the water and sugar, then skim it.
Carefully add the apples without crowding and cook until tender.
Using a silver spoon, place each piece on a shallow dish to cool.
Add one more pound of sugar to the syrup, boil and skim it.
Once the apples are cold, pour the syrup over them and let them remain in the jelly.
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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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Nice sour apples
- Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and thickens the syrup so it sets into a jelly.
The step that matters
Carefully add the apples without crowding. Crowding the kettle drops the water temperature and makes the apples steam unevenly, so they cook unevenly and may break apart before they become tender.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Quincefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon. 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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