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Dessert

Prune Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from prunes, sugar, prune juice, lemon and orange juice, set with gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prune Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak prunes in water for 6 hours.

  2. Boil prunes in the same water until tender.

  3. Add sugar and boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and remove the stones.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak gelatin in 1 cup of water.

  2. Add 2½ cups of prune juice, lemon juice, and orange juice to the pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the soaked gelatin and the prunes.

  5. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until cold.

  6. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Orange + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Prunes
Provide the main flavour and body, and their pectin-free pulp and juice give the jelly its character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the fruit and citrus juices.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet prune flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the soaked gelatin. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in hot liquid before the mixture cools, or it will set unevenly with grainy or rubbery spots. Keep the mixture hot enough for it to dissolve completely, then pour it into the mold to cool.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Limefits less well

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