Skip to main content
Dessert

Egg Jelly

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, eggs, sherry, brandy, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Egg Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. In a white-lined saucepan, combine gelatine, water, sugar, and the grated rind and juice of the lemon.

  2. Heat over low heat until the gelatine dissolves.

Combine and finish

  1. Measure sherry and brandy into a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatine mixture to the sherry and brandy.

  4. Mix in the egg yolks.

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. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the liquid into a jelly as it cools.
Eggs
Beaten whites add airy structure, and yolks add richness.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and aroma to the jelly.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the jelly.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff whites hold air bubbles that give the mixture lift and a light texture. Under-beaten whites lose volume and produce a denser result.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, brandy, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes