Skip to main content
Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert flavored with wine, lemon, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Combine the gelatin and hot water in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir constantly until it boils and dissolves.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a separate pot.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the broken cinnamon sticks and grated lemon peel.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatin to the boiling water mixture.

  4. Stir well.

  5. Mix in the sherry or Rhine wine, lemon juice, and orange juice if using.

  6. Sweeten to taste with sugar.

  7. Strain the mixture through a muslin cloth into molds.

  8. Set the molds on ice or in ice water, changing the water often.

  9. The jelly will firm up in about 45 minutes.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sherry or rhine wine
Adds the main flavour and aroma while contributing liquid to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before combining. Gelatin must be completely dissolved and evenly mixed into the hot liquid; undissolved granules or uneven mixing leave weak or lumpy patches, and the jelly only sets properly once it has cooled and firmed.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, cinnamon, lemon, sherry, brandy, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Apricotfits about as well

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

More wine jelly recipes

Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes