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Dessert

Jelly Macedoine

A layered gelatin dessert with fruit and colored jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Jelly Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water for about 1 hour.

  2. Pour boiling water over the soaked gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Layer and set

  1. Pour a thin layer of jelly into a mold and chill until firm.

  2. Place a layer of fruit on the firm jelly. Carefully pour more jelly over the fruit until it is covered.

  3. Repeat layering with fruit and jelly until the mold is full.

  4. Chill until completely set, then unmold and 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. Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  4. Peach + bananatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the boiling water into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Fruit
Adds flavor, color and texture between the clear jelly layers.
Boiling water
Melts the soaked gelatin so it can mix evenly into a liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the jelly over set layers gently. Gelatin must be firm before each new layer, and the jelly should be only warm enough to pour. If it is too hot, it melts the layer below and the fruit layers blur together; if too cool, it sets before spreading and leaves gaps.

Swap the grape

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, apple, peach, banana, 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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