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Dessert

Strawberry Jelly

A chilled strawberry dessert made with sugar syrup, gelatin, egg whites, lemon juice, and topped with lemon jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and 2 cups of cold water to make a syrup.

Set and serve

  1. Once cool, pour the syrup over ½ lb of strawberries that have been picked and crushed.

  2. Add the gelatin and stir until dissolved.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the mixture along with the lemon juice.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  5. Serve with a little lemon jelly on top.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor, color and body of the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable jelly as it chills.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they lighten the texture and add airiness to the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff egg whites trap air, which gives lightness. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the jelly turns out denser. Fold gently so the foam stays intact.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, egg. 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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