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Wine Jelly, Madeira

A gelatinous dessert made from Madeira wine, brandy, egg yolks, and wine jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Wine Jelly, Madeira

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Prepare calf's foot jelly and clarify it.

  2. Add the Madeira wine and brandy to the clarified jelly in the stewpan.

Thicken and cool

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the wine jelly and heat to thicken.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and cool it in a basin on ice.

Finish

  1. Add a pinch of isinglass during clarification to prevent breaking.

  2. Garnish with finely chopped jelly or strawberries for variety.

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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  2. Madeira wine + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together120 recipes
  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Madeira wine + winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Egg + winetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Madeira wine
Gives the jelly its main flavour and colour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the jelly's flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture when gently heated, giving it a richer body.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolks to thicken. Egg yolk proteins thicken the mixture as they warm, but if the heat is too high they scramble and curdle. Heat gently and keep stirring so the custard stays smooth.

“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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