Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Jelly

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

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

Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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

Prepare

  1. Mash the strawberries in a basin with a wooden spoon.

  2. Stir in the currant jelly until well combined.

  3. Add the cold spring water and lemon juice.

  4. Sweeten with sugar to your taste.

  5. Incorporate the isinglass while it's still cool.

Clarify and set

  1. Strain the mixture through a bag 2-3 times until clear.

  2. Set the jelly in ice to cool.

  3. Garnish with strawberries before serving.

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 + sugartop 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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and colour of the jelly.
Currant jelly
Adds body and extra fruit sweetness to the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Isinglass
Gelatine-like setting agent that firms the liquid into a jelly.

The step that matters

Incorporate the isinglass while it's still cool. Isinglass sets firmly as it cools, so adding it when the mixture is still warm but not hot helps it dissolve evenly without clumping or losing setting power from overheating. Stirring it in gently keeps the mixture clear and well distributed before the final set.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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