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Dessert

Venus's Clear Jelly

A clear jelly made with isinglass, sugar syrup, rose essence, brandy, and cochineal, set in ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Venus's Clear Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Mix the isinglass with the sugar syrup and cochineal until well combined.

  2. Add the essence of roses and brandy, then mix lightly with a spoon.

  3. Strain the mixture through a silk sieve into a copper mold.

Set and serve

  1. Place the mold in a box filled with pounded ice, surrounding it completely.

  2. Pour the jelly into the mold, cover it with a thin tin cover, and add more ice on top.

  3. Let it set for three hours.

  4. To serve, quickly plunge the mold into warm water and turn it out onto a plate.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together561 recipes
  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the clear liquid into a firm jelly.
Sugar syrup
Provides sweetness and body to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds flavor and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Plunge the mold quickly into warm water. Brief contact with warm water loosens the jelly's outer edge so it releases from the mold without melting. Leaving it too long softens the surface and can distort or melt the set jelly.

“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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