Skip to main content
Dessert

Red Grape Jelly

A jelly made from black-cluster grapes and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Red Grape Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the grapes from their stalks and stir them in a pot over gentle heat until they burst and release their juice.

  2. Strain the juice without pressure through a jelly bag or twice-folded muslin.

Make the jelly

  1. Weigh the juice and boil it rapidly for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 14 ounces of sugar for each pound of juice until dissolved.

  3. Boil the jelly quickly for an additional 15 minutes, stirring constantly and skimming well.

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. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Black-cluster grapes
Provide the juice, along with natural pectin and acidity that help the jelly set and taste bright.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it thicken and set into a firm gel.

The step that matters

Straining without pressure. Pressing the grapes forces cloudy solids and fine pulp through the cloth, which makes the jelly murky and can cloud its clarity. Letting the juice drip slowly keeps the finished jelly clear.

“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

Grape SherbetGrape Sherbet32 recipesGrapefruit MarmaladeGrapefruit Marmalade16 recipesGrape ButterGrape Butter9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes