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Dessert

German Jelly

A fruit jelly made with rice flour, corn flour, red currants, raspberries, sugar, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

German Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flour paste

  1. Mix rice flour and corn flour into a paste with cold water.

Make the juice

  1. Boil red currants and raspberries, then strain through a jelly bag.

  2. Sweeten the juice to taste and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and set

  1. Bring the juice to a boil, then pour in the flour paste and mix well.

  2. Boil for a while, then pour into shapes to set.

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. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + red curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the juice into a firm, sliceable jelly when cooked and cooled.
Corn flour
Adds thickening power alongside the rice flour, giving the jelly body and a smooth set.
Red currants
Contribute tartness and pectin-rich juice that helps the jelly hold its shape.
Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and aroma, along with colour and sweetness balance.

The step that matters

Pour the flour paste into boiling juice and mix well. Starch must be stirred in evenly while the juice is boiling; otherwise it clumps, and the paste will not thicken smoothly. Boiling afterwards fully cooks the starch so the jelly sets firm.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, corn, sugar. 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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