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Pineapple Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with pineapple juice, chopped pineapple, lemon rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pineapple Jelly

Why it works: Lemon and pineapple 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

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the grated lemon rind and soak for an additional 15 minutes.

Make the jelly

  1. Stir in the sugar, lemon juice, boiling water, and pineapple juice.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and strain it into a mould that has been soaked in cold water.

  3. Add the chopped pineapple to the mould and refrigerate until 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. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the jelly's smooth, tender texture.
Chopped pineapple
Adds fruit pieces and flavour throughout the set jelly.

The step that matters

Strain into the chilled mould before adding pineapple. The gelatine must be fully dissolved in the hot liquid and strained so no lumps remain. Adding the pineapple only after the mixture has been poured lets the fruit settle evenly instead of floating, and a mould soaked in cold water helps the jelly release cleanly.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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