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Dessert

Fruit Mould

A jellied fruit dessert made with currants, raspberries, sugar, lemon, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 90 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fruit Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Pick over and wash the fruit.

  2. In an earthenware stewpan, combine the fruit, sugar, water, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

  4. Soak the gelatine in water while the fruit is boiling.

Set the mould

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in 2 tablespoons of boiling water.

  2. Once the fruit is cooked, stir in the dissolved gelatine and beat briskly for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Add flavoring if desired.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mould soaked in cold water and place it in a cool area to set.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream or thick custard.

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. Red currant + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Red currant + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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 fruit mixture into a firm mould as it cools.
Red currants
Provide tart flavour and colour, and their natural acidity balances the sugar.
Raspberries
Add fruity aroma, colour and soft texture to the mould.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the fruit flavour full and rounded.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour and sharpens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the dissolved gelatine evenly into the cooked fruit. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and mixed through the fruit while the mixture is still warm. Undissolved gelatine forms lumps and weak patches, so the mould may set unevenly or crumble when turned out.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, almond. 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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