Skip to main content
Dessert

Special Wine Jelly

A gelatinous jelly made with wine, lemon juice, rind, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Special Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a kettle, combine water, sugar, gelatin, lemon juice and rind, cinnamon, allspice, and sherry wine.

  2. Whip the egg whites and add them to the mixture along with the egg shells.

  3. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it comes to a boil.

  4. Add 1 pint of cold water and then filter the mixture.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.
Lemons
Provide acidity and bright flavor from the juice and rind.
Sherry wine
Adds the main liquid body and a fortified wine flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped whites and shells are used to clarify the mixture as they bind impurities.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites and shells before boiling. Egg whites and shells attract particles as the mixture heats and rises, forming a crust that traps them. Whipping and adding them evenly before heating lets them clarify the liquid, leaving a clear jelly once it is filtered.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, gelatin, lemon, cinnamon, sherry, wine, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, lemon, cinnamon, sherry, wine, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes