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Mint Jelly

A fruit jelly made from apples and mint, sweetened with sugar and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mint Jelly

Why it works: Mint and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apple juice

  1. Wash and wipe the apples, then cut them into eighths.

  2. Add the cold water, cover, and bring to a boil.

  3. Let simmer until the apples are soft.

  4. Mash the apples well and strain through a coarse sieve.

  5. Let the juice drip through a jelly bag overnight.

Make the jelly

  1. Put the juice over the fire and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Add an equal measure of heated sugar and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Bruise the mint leaves with your fingers.

  4. Pass them through the syrup until the desired flavor is reached during the last 5 minutes of cooking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Apple + minttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Gravenstein apples
Provide pectin and tart fruit juice that sets into the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps the jelly set and hold its shape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports proper gel setting.
Fresh mint
Supplies the aroma and flavor that defines the jelly.

The step that matters

Pass them through the syrup during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Mint flavor is volatile and turns bitter or harsh with prolonged heat, so it is added late and only until the desired flavor is reached.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mint, lemon, 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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