Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Jelly

A fruit jelly made from strawberries, sugar, isinglass, water, red‑currant juice, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the fruit

  1. Strew the sugar over the strawberries.

  2. Let the strawberries stand for several hours.

  3. Drain the syrup from the strawberries.

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in a covered pan with the water over low heat.

  2. Remove the pan as soon as the isinglass is dissolved.

  3. Let the dissolved isinglass cool.

  4. Add the red-currant juice and lemon juice.

  5. Stir in the isinglass.

  6. Simmer the mixture for five minutes.

  7. Strain the mixture through a thick muslin strainer two or three times until clear.

  8. Fill the molds.

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

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

  2. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Isinglass
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Fine powdered sugar
Draws syrup out of the strawberries and sweetens the jelly.
Fresh strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and color of the jelly.
Red-currant juice
Adds tart acidity and depth of fruit flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances sweetness.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture until clear. Straining through a thick muslin several times removes fine solids and cloudiness, so the jelly sets clear and bright rather than murky.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes