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Dessert

Jellied Prunes

A sweet jelly made from prune water, sugar, lemon juice, and gelatin, studded with cooked prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Jellied Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft.

  2. Combine the sugar, lemon juice, and prune water in a saucepan.

  3. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Add the softened gelatine to the mixture.

  5. Stir until the gelatine is fully dissolved.

  6. Allow the jelly to cool until it begins to set.

Set and serve

  1. Stone and quarter the cooked prunes.

  2. Add the prunes to the partially set jelly.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  4. Refrigerate until fully set.

  5. Serve chilled with sugar and cream.

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

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the tartness of the lemon and prunes.
Prune water
Supplies the main prune flavour and liquid for the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet prune flavour.
Cooked prunes
Provide pieces of fruit and extra prune flavour throughout the jelly.

The step that matters

Add the prunes to the partially set jelly. If the jelly is still too warm or fully set, the prunes may sink or float unevenly; if it has set too far, they will not hold their position. Gelatine needs to be only partly firm so the fruit stays suspended.

“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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