Skip to main content
Dessert

Cherry Jelly

A gelatin-based cherry jelly made with lemon juice, sugar, egg whites, noyeau, almond extract, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cherry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in the water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the juice of the lemons, sugar, and whisked egg whites in a little cold water.

  3. Stir gently over heat until boiling.

  4. Let the mixture settle for a few minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a flannel jelly bag until clear.

  6. Add the noyeau, almond extract, and color with cochineal.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Let the jelly set.

  3. Dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds.

  4. Wipe the mold.

  5. Turn the mold onto a glass or silver dish.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Collect impurities as they cook, helping the jelly strain clear.
Lemons
Add acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the set.
Noyeau
Adds a bitter almond and cherry-stone aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a flannel jelly bag until clear. Egg whites trap cloudy particles as they boil and form a crust. Straining through a flannel bag removes them, so the jelly sets clear rather than murky.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, lemon, sugar, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes