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Dessert

Sweet Cider Jelly

A gelatin dessert made from sweet cider, lemon, cinnamon, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sweet Cider Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Pour sweet cider over the lemon peel and cinnamon sticks.

  3. Strain out the lemon peel and cinnamon after 1 hour.

  4. Pour boiling water over the dissolved gelatine and stir until fully dissolved.

  5. Add the cider and lemon juice, then sweeten to taste, and strain the mixture.

Set the jelly

  1. Pour the strained mixture into molds.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

  3. If desired, add more cinnamon and brandy before setting.

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. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cider + cinnamontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sweet cider
Provides most of the liquid and the main apple flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the cider.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic citrus oils to the cider during infusing.
Cinnamon sticks
Infuse warm spice aroma into the cider.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine fully in boiling water. Gelatine only sets when its proteins fully dissolve and then cool into a network. Undissolved grains leave gritty spots and weak patches, so stir until no granules remain before adding the cider.

“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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