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Spiced Grape Jelly

A sweet and spiced grape jelly made with grape juice, cinnamon, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Grape Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Crush the juice from half ripe grapes and strain it.

Cook and pour

  1. Combine grape juice, cinnamon, sugar, and cloves in a pot.

  2. Cook over high heat for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and pour into glasses.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Grape + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Grape juice
Provides the fruit flavor and the liquid base that becomes the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with the fruit's pectin, helps the jelly set.
Cinnamon
Adds a warm, sweet spice aroma and flavor.
Cloves
Adds a strong, pungent spice aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Cook over high heat for 20 minutes. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and fruit pectin so the jelly can set. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while too long at high heat can scorch the sugar and darken the flavor.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, clove. 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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