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Pine-apple Jelly

A preserved pineapple confection sweetened with sugar and finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pine-apple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and grate the pineapples.

  2. Weigh the grated pineapples and add an equal weight of white sugar.

Make the jelly

  1. Stir the mixture until well combined and it thickens.

  2. Strain the mixture into jars.

  3. Once it congeals, cover the top with paper dipped in brandy.

  4. Tie the jars tightly.

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. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Pineapples
Provide the fruit flavour and the pectin-rich pulp that helps the jelly set.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and, with the fruit, helps the mixture thicken and set as it cooks.
Brandy
Dipped paper on the surface adds aroma and helps protect the top of the jelly.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture thickens. The jelly sets only when the sugar and fruit pectin are concentrated enough by cooking. Stopping too early leaves a runny mixture that will not congeal, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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