Skip to main content
Dessert

Mint Jelly

A fruit jelly made from apples, mint, sugar, lemon juice, and green coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 juice

  1. Wipe apples, remove stems and blossom ends, and cut into eighths.

  2. Place apples in a graniteware kettle and add cold water.

  3. Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer until apples are soft.

  4. Mash apples in the kettle using a wooden potato masher and drain through a coarse sieve.

  5. Allow juice to drip through several layers of cheesecloth or a jelly bag.

  6. Return juice to saucepan, bring to a boil, and boil for 20 minutes.

Make the jelly

  1. Add an equal measure of heated sugar, bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Wash and bruise mint leaves slightly, then pass the bunch through the syrup for 3 minutes.

  3. Add lemon juice and color with vegetable green paste.

  4. Skim and pour into jelly glasses.

Set and store

  1. Place in a sunny window for 24 hours, then cover and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Sugar + lemontop 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

Porter apples
Their natural pectin and acid let the cooked juice gel into jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and, boiled with it, helps the mixture reach a firm set.
Fresh mint
Supplies the main aroma, infused into the hot syrup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports gelling.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice and sugar to a set. Boiling drives off water so the sugar concentrates and pectin and acid can form a gel. Underboiling leaves the jelly runny, while overboiling can make it stiff or cloudy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mint, 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes