Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Strawberry, Raspberry, and Blackberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Mash the berries and drain them through a flannel bag without squeezing.
Make the jelly
For each pint of juice, add 1 pound of white sugar and the beaten egg white.
Heat the mixture until it boils.
Remove the mixture from heat and skim off any foam.
Return the mixture to heat and boil until it reaches a jelly consistency.
Test the consistency by dropping some into cold water.
If it forms a solid mass at the bottom, it is ready.
Seal the jelly in jars or cups.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ripe strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and the pectin-bearing juice that sets the jelly.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.
- Egg white
- Is beaten into the mixture and rises to the top as foam, which is skimmed off to clarify the jelly.
The step that matters
Judging the jelly consistency. Boiling must continue until the mixture reaches the gel point. Stopping early leaves a runny jelly, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour. The cold-water test shows whether it has set.
“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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