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Dessert

Jellied Prunes

A dessert made by cooking prunes with water, gelatin, sugar, and lemon juice, then chilling to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 prunes

  1. Pick over, wash, and soak prunes in 2 cups cold water for several hours.

  2. Cook prunes in the same water until soft.

  3. Remove prunes, stone them, and cut into quarters.

  4. Add enough boiling water to the prune water to make 2 cups.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak gelatin in ½ cup cold water.

  2. Dissolve gelatin in the hot liquid.

  3. Add sugar and lemon juice.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Add the prunes.

  6. Mold the mixture.

  7. Chill.

  8. Stir twice while cooling to prevent prunes from settling.

  9. Serve 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

Prunes
Provide the main body, fruit flavour and sweetness of the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the prunes.

The step that matters

Stir twice while cooling. Prunes are heavier than the liquid and will sink before the gelatine sets. Stirring during cooling keeps them suspended so they are spread evenly through the finished jelly.

“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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