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Pineapple Jelly

A sweet preserve made by cooking grated pineapple with apples, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Pineapple Jelly

Why it works: Apple and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Wash and cut the apples, removing all blemishes.

  2. Cover the apples with water and cook until soft.

  3. Strain to obtain 1 pint of juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar to the juice and boil as you would any jelly.

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. Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide pectin and acid, which help the juice set into a jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm when boiled with the juice.
Grated pineapple
Adds its flavour and fruit body to the jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar. Sugar and acid must reach a rolling boil long enough for pectin to set the jelly. Undercooked jelly stays runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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