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Dessert

Apples in Jelly

Apples stuffed with raisins and cherries, set in a gelatinous syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Apples in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples and syrup

  1. Peel and core the apples, then stuff them with raisins and cherries.

  2. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water, and cook until it forms a syrup.

Poach the apples

  1. Place the stuffed apples in the syrup and cook until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples and place them in a dish with sides at least 1 inch deep.

Make the jelly

  1. Add lemon juice and cherry juice to the syrup, then stir in the soaked gelatin until dissolved.

  2. Once the mixture is nearly cool, pour it around and over the apples.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, color the syrup with color paste.

  2. For individual servings, cut the apples with a round cutter.

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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the firm, tender fruit that the jelly surrounds and holds in place.
Gelatin
Sets the cooked syrup into a clear, sliceable jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and gives it body as it cooks down.
Maraschino cherries
Add sweetness, flavor and color to the raisin and cherry filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup and balances its sugar.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully and cool the mixture before pouring. Gelatin only sets evenly when it is completely dissolved in the liquid. Pouring the mixture while it is still very hot delays setting and can leave the jelly uneven around the apples.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, gelatin, raisin. 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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