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Mint Jelly

Mint jelly is a gelatin dessert made with mint, lemon juice, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mint Jelly

Why it works: Mint and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the mint in 1 pint of water for 5 minutes, then strain.

  2. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of cold water until soft.

  3. Add the mint water, lemon juice, and sugar to the gelatine, stirring until dissolved.

Finish and set

  1. Add 1 more pint of hot water and enough green coloring to achieve desired tint.

  2. Set the mixture on ice until firm.

  3. Garnish with egg whites cut into eighths and sprigs of mint.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Mint
Gives the jelly its fresh mint aroma and flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sourness of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before chilling. Gelatine must first soften in cold water, then fully dissolve into the warm liquid. If it stays partly undissolved, it can set unevenly, leaving soft or grainy patches instead of a clear, firm jelly.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe 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.

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