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Pineapple Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with pineapple pieces, pineapple juice, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Jelly

Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water.

  2. Combine pineapple juice, sugar, and cold water in a pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Pour the boiling mixture over the soaked gelatin.

  5. Stir until the gelatin is dissolved.

Cool and add the fruit

  1. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  2. Add the pineapple pieces before it begins to set.

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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Pineapple + gelatintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Forms the gel network that lets the cooled liquid set into a firm jelly.
Pineapple juice
Supplies most of the liquid and the fruit flavor of the jelly.
Pineapple
Adds fruit pieces and texture to the set jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the pineapple pieces. Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down gelatin proteins and stops them setting. Adding the pieces just before the mixture begins to set keeps the gel firm.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, 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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