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Dessert

Cherry Jelly

A fruit jelly made from dark red cherries, lemon juice, currant jelly, clarified sugar, and isinglass, set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cherry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick and stone the cherries, placing the stones on a plate.

  2. Squeeze the lemon juice into a basin through a silk sieve.

  3. Pound the stones in a mortar and mash the cherries in a basin with a wooden spoon.

  4. Add the currant jelly, pounded stones, and lemon juice to the cherries and mix well.

Make and set the jelly

  1. In a pot, boil the sugar and isinglass together for a few minutes, skimming as needed.

  2. Place the cherries in a jelly bag and pour the sugar and isinglass mixture over them.

  3. Run the mixture through the bag several times until clear; adjust sweetness with more sugar or acidity with more lemon if needed.

  4. Wet your mold, set it in ice, and fill it with the jelly. Leave it until ready to serve.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

Dark red fleshy cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and body of the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Currant jelly
Adds extra pectin and fruit flavour to help the jelly set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps give it a smooth, set texture.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm jelly when chilled.

The step that matters

Running the mixture through the bag until clear. Straining several times removes cloudy pulp so the jelly looks clear. Too little straining leaves it cloudy, and the isinglass must be fully dissolved in the hot sugar syrup first so the jelly sets evenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, gelatin. 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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