Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples in Red Jelly

Apples baked in a red jelly made from sugar, lemon, water, gelatin, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apples in Red Jelly

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, placing a clove and sugar inside each apple.

  2. Arrange the apples in a large pie dish without touching each other.

Bake

  1. Add more sugar, lemon juice, and water to the dish.

  2. Cover and bake in the oven until done, checking frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, transfer each apple to a glass dish carefully.

  2. Strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, adding lemon rind.

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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Hold their shape while baking and provide the main body of the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and the cooking liquid, adding body to the syrup.
Gelatin
Sets the strained cooking liquid into a clear jelly around the apples.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the syrup.

The step that matters

Covering and baking until done. Covering traps steam so the apples cook through gently without splitting or drying out. Checking often prevents overcooking, which would turn them mushy and cloud the syrup that later sets into jelly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, clove, sugar, gelatin. 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

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes