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Dessert

Fruit Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with orange, banana, fig, date, grape, almond, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fruit Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Slice the orange, bananas, and figs.

  2. Seed the dates.

  3. Chop the grapes and almonds.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Boil 1½ cups water.

  3. Dissolve 2 cups sugar in the boiling water.

  4. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in the syrup.

  5. Strain the mixture.

  6. Place the strained mixture in ice water.

Set and serve

  1. When it thickens, stir in the prepared fruit.

  2. Place the mixture on ice.

  3. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Banana + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Fig + grapetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

  5. Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid as it cools, giving the jelly its firm, wobbly structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup that the gelatine sets in.
Orange
Adds acidity and fresh citrus flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit when the mixture thickens. Gelatine sets as it cools. Fruit added while the mixture is still too runny will sink and settle unevenly, while fruit added after it has firmed will not blend in and may leave lumps.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, banana, fig, grape, almond, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, banana, fig, grape, almond, sugar. 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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