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Dessert

Strawberry Jelly

A preserved strawberry confection made by boiling sugar and water, steeping strawberries, clarifying with isinglass, and setting in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil the sugar in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Pour the boiling syrup over the strawberries.

  3. Let the strawberries stand overnight.

Combine the mixture

  1. Soak the isinglass in a pint of water until clarified.

  2. Drain the syrup from the strawberries.

  3. Add the red-currant juice and lemon juice to the strawberries.

  4. When the isinglass is nearly cold, mix it with the strawberry mixture.

  5. Add more sugar if desired.

Set the jelly

  1. Pour the mixture into molds.

  2. Place the molds in an earthen pan.

  3. Cover the molds with crushed ice.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and lemon 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

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body of the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it hold a firm set.
Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Red-currant juice
Adds tart fruit flavour and acidity that balances the sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the fruit taste.

The step that matters

Mix in the isinglass when it is nearly cold. Isinglass is a gelatin-like protein that sets as it cools. If added while the mixture is still hot, it will not gel properly; if left too long, it begins to set in lumps before it blends evenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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