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Dessert

Punch Jelly, Made with Gelatine

A sweet, citrusy gelatin dessert made with lemon, rum, brandy, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Punch Jelly, Made with Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons and sugar

  1. Rub sugar on the rind of the lemons until the yellow part is removed, then add more sugar to make 10 ounces.

  2. Strain the juice of the lemons over the sugar.

Make the jelly

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the lemon juice, sugar, rum, brandy, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and gelatine dissolved in water.

  2. When the mixture is almost cold, whisk the egg whites and stir them in with their crushed shells.

  3. Set the pan on the fire and gently boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let it stand untouched for 20 minutes.

  5. Strain through a jelly bag until the jelly is clear and bright.

Set

  1. Pour into a mold and let it stand in a cool place until firm, about 12 hours.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
They bind with impurities and rise to the top, helping clarify the jelly as it is strained.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and helps give the jelly its body.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fragrance from the zest and juice.
Jamaica rum
Adds strong alcoholic flavour and aroma to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds warm, fruity alcoholic flavour and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Let the egg whites settle before straining. Egg whites coagulate as they heat and trap cloudy particles, carrying them to the surface. Straining too early, or stirring the mixture up again, leaves the jelly cloudy instead of clear and bright.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rum, brandy, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum, brandy, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, egg. 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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