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Dessert

Apple in Jelly

A dessert of boiled apples served with fruit jelly and wine-based jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Apple in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and poach

  1. Halve the apples and core them carefully.

  2. Cook the apples quickly in boiling water with sugar, lemon juice, and peels.

Make the jelly and serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the apples to a dish and fill the hollows with currant or raspberry jelly.

  2. In the same pot, cook the remaining liquid with wine and sugar until it forms a jelly.

  3. Pour the jelly over the apples and serve cold.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

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

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and structure of the dish once softened by poaching.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the poaching liquid thicken into a jelly.
Currant or raspberry jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and sets as a glossy filling in the apple hollows.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the poaching liquid that becomes the jelly.

The step that matters

Cooking the apples quickly. Apples cooked too long in boiling water turn soft and collapse, losing their shape before they are filled. Cooking only until tender keeps them intact to hold the jelly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon, wine. 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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