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Dessert

Prunes in Jelly

A dessert of stewed prunes set in a gelatinous orange and lemon mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prunes in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Remove stones and stems from the stewed prunes and place them in a round mold.

Make the jelly and set

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in the orange juice.

  2. Add 1½ cups of the boiling hot water from the stewed prunes, lemon juice, and sugar to the gelatin mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture over the prunes and let it cool.

  4. Chill in the refrigerator and 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Orange + gelatintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Prunes
Form the fruit body of the jelly and supply the main flavour.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when unmoulded.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Oranges
Provide the juice that dissolves the gelatin and adds citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully in the orange juice. Gelatin must dissolve completely in warm liquid before the rest is added. Undissolved granules leave grainy specks and an uneven set, so the jelly may not firm evenly when chilled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, gelatin, 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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