Name: Lemon Jelly
Ingredients: 1 box gelatine; 5 lemons; 1 small stick of cinnamon; a little orange peel; 1½ pints sugar; 1 pint cold water; 3 pints boiling water

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Lemon Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pare the lemons thin and squeeze out the juice.
Break up the cinnamon stick and orange peel.
Combine the gelatine, sugar, cold water, cinnamon, and orange peel in a bowl.
Let the mixture soak for 3 hours.

Make the jelly

Pour the mixture into a kettle with boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved.
Let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
Strain the mixture through a bag into jelly molds.
Let the jelly cool.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gelatine: Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sugar: Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the liquid.
Lemons: Provide the juice that gives the jelly its sharp, acidic flavour.
Cinnamon: Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the liquid as it soaks and simmers.