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Dessert

Sherry Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with sherry wine, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sherry Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water for 1 hour on the back of the stove, keeping it warm but not hot.

  2. Dissolve ½ cup of granulated sugar in 1 pint of boiling water and pour it over the soaked gelatin.

  3. When the mixture cools and begins to thicken, stir in 3 tablespoons of sherry wine.

Add the egg whites

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and mix well.

  2. Fold the egg white mixture into the gelatin until combined, then set aside to cool.

Serve

  1. Serve with white cake.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sherry + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and airy body to the jelly.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps give it a pleasant balance.
Sherry wine
Adds flavour and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the gelatin. Gelatin begins to set as it cools, so if it has thickened too much the whites will deflate and lose their airy structure. Fold gently and keep the gelatin only just thickened so the foam is preserved.

“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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