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Dessert

Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream

A gelatin dessert made with wine, lemon, sugar, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Combine soaked gelatine, lemon juice and peel, sugar, and almond extract in a bowl; cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour boiling water over the mixture, stir, and strain.

  4. Add the wine and strain again through a flannel bag without squeezing.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold that has been wet with cold water and refrigerate until set.

  2. Whip the cream to a thick froth using a syllabub churn.

  3. Once the jelly is set, fill the center with whipped cream or heap it around the base.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Forms the gel structure that holds the jelly firm when chilled.
White wine or pale sherry
Adds flavour and acidity while contributing liquid to the jelly.
White sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and brightness, and the peel adds aromatic citrus oils.
Rich cream
Whipped to a froth, it provides a light, rich topping that contrasts the jelly.

The step that matters

Straining without squeezing the flannel bag. Squeezing forces fine solids and cloudiness through the cloth, leaving the jelly murky. Letting it drip keeps it clear and bright.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, sugar, cream):

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, sugar, cream. 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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