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Strawberry Jelly

A fruit jelly made from mashed strawberries, sugar, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the strawberries in a pan using a wooden spoon or potato masher.

  2. Place a sieve over another pan and line it with thin muslin.

  3. Strain the strawberry juice through the muslin.

Make the jelly

  1. For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar and ¼ ounce of dissolved isinglass.

  2. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves and boil until it reaches a jelly consistency.

  3. Pour the jelly into glasses while warm and cover them once cooled.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Provide the flavour and the juice that forms the body of the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the jelly hold its set once boiled.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the juice into a firm jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Boiling to jelly consistency. Boiling concentrates the sugar and dissolved isinglass so the mixture sets firmly when cooled. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overboiling can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

“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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