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Pineapple Jelly

A gelatin-based dessert made with pineapple pieces, lemon juice, sugar, and Knox gelatine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Jelly

Why it works: Lemon and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for about 10 minutes until soft.

  2. Add boiling water, sugar, and lemon juice to the softened gelatine.

  3. Strain the mixture and pour it into a mold.

Add fruit and serve

  1. When it begins to set, add the pineapple pieces.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set jelly's firmness slightly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Pineapple
Adds fruit flavour and pieces that stay suspended in the setting jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the pineapple when the jelly begins to set. Fresh pineapple contains enzymes that break down gelatine and stop it from setting, so fully liquid jelly can leave the fruit floating. Adding pineapple only once the jelly has begun to thicken, and after the gelatine has set firmly, helps keep the pieces suspended and the jelly intact.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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