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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with wine, sugar, lemon juice, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in the cold water for 20 minutes.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the sugar, lemon juice, boiling water, Sherry wine, and brandy.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Add ½ cup of cold water.

  4. Let it stand for 5 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture.

Set

  1. Fill the molds.

  2. Let the molds stand until the next day.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Sherry wine
Provides the main wine flavour of the jelly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Let the molds stand until the next day. Gelatine firms up gradually as it cools and sets, so the jelly needs a long rest to become fully firm. Unmoulding it too early can leave it soft or collapsing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, wine, brandy. 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.

More wine jelly recipes

Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

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