Skip to main content
Dessert

Jellies for Dessert

A fruit jelly made from apples or quinces, sugar, lemon juice, and brandy-dipped paper.

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

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Jellies for Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and core the apples or quinces, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Place the fruit in a pot with the pounded clove and lemon juice, and cover the mixture with water.

  3. Set the pot on moderate heat and boil gently until the fruit is well cooked.

Make the jelly

  1. Pour the mixture into a jelly bag placed over a bowl to collect the juice, then measure the juice.

  2. Add ½ pound of loaf sugar for every pound of juice.

  3. Boil the mixture until it reaches a jelly consistency.

  4. Pour the jelly into pots and let it cool.

Seal and store

  1. Cut a piece of white paper to fit inside the pot, dip it in brandy, and place it over the jelly.

  2. Cover the pot well and store it in a dry, cool 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.

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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples or quinces
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that lets the juice set into a jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it thicken and set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports pectin setting.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar to jelly consistency. Sugar and acid must be concentrated by boiling to the right point; too little boiling leaves a runny jelly, while overboiling can make it stiff or cause sugar to crystallize.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, clove, sugar, brandy. 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