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Dessert

Lemon Jellies

A clear lemon gelatin dessert made with water, lemon juice, gelatine, egg whites, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rinds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemon Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use a very clean pan to avoid cloudy jelly.

  2. Peel the lemons very thin and strain the juice.

  3. Whisk the egg whites and crush the shells.

  4. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.

Make the jelly

  1. Whisk over medium heat until boiling.

  2. Remove the whisk and let the jelly boil once more.

  3. Set aside to settle with the lid partly on for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain through a scalded linen cloth tied over the legs of an upside-down chair.

  5. If not clear, strain again through the cloth.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into wetted molds and set.

  2. Before turning out the jelly, plunge the molds into hot water.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Bind with impurities during boiling so they can be strained out, leaving the jelly clear.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity and main flavour of the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the lemon's acidity.

The step that matters

Strain through a scalded linen cloth. Clarity depends on removing the egg-white and shell particles that cloud the jelly. A clean, scalded cloth and a patient, unhurried strain let the liquid run through clear, and a second strain helps if it is still cloudy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, egg, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, egg, sugar, cinnamon. 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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