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Dessert

Marble Jelly

A jelly made from isinglass, sugar, lemon juice and maraschino, set with lumps of bright-colored jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Marble Jelly

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Oil a jelly mould well.

  2. Prepare a clear, colorless jelly.

  3. Fill the mould with rough lumps of bright-colored jelly (orange, strawberry, apple).

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve isinglass in water over heat.

  2. Add sugar to the dissolved isinglass.

  3. Add beaten egg whites to the dissolved isinglass.

  4. Add lemon juice to the dissolved isinglass.

  5. Simmer for a few minutes.

  6. Pour in maraschino.

  7. Simmer longer.

Clarify and strain

  1. Let the mixture stand undisturbed before passing it through a jelly bag.

  2. If it is not clear, return it to the bag until crystal clear.

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 + 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

Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites (in the method)
Clarifying agent that coagulates and traps cloudy particles so they can be strained out.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Maraschino
Adds a strong cherry-like aroma and flavor to the jelly.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand undisturbed before straining. The heated egg whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles. If the mixture is stirred or moved, these particles get redistributed, and the jelly will not run clear through the bag.

“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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