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Dessert

Barberry Jelly with Apples

A jelly made from barberries and apples, set with gelatin and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Barberry Jelly with Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barberry syrup

  1. Remove the stems from the barberries.

  2. Place them in a pot.

  3. Cover with water.

  4. Let infuse for 2-3 hours.

  5. Strain the barberries through a white napkin to extract the syrup.

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in warm water.

  2. Add lemon juice.

  3. Mix with the syrup.

Layer and set

  1. Pack a cylinder mold with broken ice.

  2. Pour in a little jelly to a depth of ½ inch.

  3. Arrange a layer of apple pieces in a design on the jelly.

  4. Cover with more jelly.

  5. Let set.

  6. Repeat layering apples and jelly until the mold is full.

  7. Finish with a top layer of jelly.

  8. Cover the mold with a baking sheet.

  9. Let the jelly set for at least 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Turn out the jelly onto a suitable dish.

  2. Serve.

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. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fine gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Barberries
Provide the tart flavor and color of the syrup that forms the jelly.
Cooking apples
Provide firm pieces that hold their shape within the clear jelly layers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavor of the jelly.

The step that matters

Let each layer set before adding the next. Gelatine sets as it cools, so pouring hot or unset jelly over the apples can disturb the design and make layers blur together. Each layer needs to firm before the next is added.

“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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