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Pineapple Jelly

A sweet pineapple jelly made with grated pineapple, sugar, lemon juice, gelatin, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Cook the pineapple

  1. Cook the grated pineapple with sugar for 10 minutes.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Add the lemon juice to the cooled mixture.

Set the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water, then dissolve it over hot water.

  2. Strain the dissolved gelatin into the pineapple mixture and tint green if desired.

  3. Pour into a mold and chill 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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

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

Grated pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and most of the jelly's body and moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine. The gelatine must be fully dissolved in warm water before it goes into the mixture, or it will leave lumps and set unevenly. Overheating or boiling it can weaken its setting power, so dissolve it gently over hot water rather than boiling.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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