Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Blue Grape Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Pick grapes from the stems and wash them.
Place grapes in a pan or jar and set in a larger vessel of hot water. Cook until the grapes are broken.
Place a square of cheesecloth over a colander and set it over a bowl. Turn the grapes into the colander and let them drip without pressure.
Make the jelly
Measure the juice and add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.
Heat the juice over the fire and place the sugar in shallow pans in the oven to warm without turning yellow.
Cook the juice for 20 minutes, skimming off impurities. Add the sugar to the juice and stir until dissolved.
Remove the spoon and cook for a moment longer until the liquid jellies when dropped on a cool plate.
Jar and set
Pour into jelly glasses and cover when cold.
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.
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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Isabella grapes
- Provide the juice and natural pectin that let the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it thicken into a jelly as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cooking the juice to the jelly point. Cook long enough for the sugar and pectin to reach the setting point, but not so long that the jelly becomes overly firm or darkens. Testing on a cool plate shows whether it will set.
“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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