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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with wine, lemon, sherry, sugar, brandy, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Wash the shells in a little salted water and crush them.

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

Make the jelly

  1. Put all ingredients except the brandy into a clean saucepan and whisk over heat until boiling.

  2. Ease the lid on the pan and keep the jelly by the side of the fire to clear for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain twice through a scalded linen cloth and add the brandy.

Set and serve

  1. Mould and set the jelly.

  2. Dip the mould into hot water and turn out the jelly.

  3. Decorate with a little of the chopped jelly.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Egg whites and shells
Whisked whites and crushed shells clarify the jelly, trapping cloudiness so it runs clear.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and a warm, dry aroma to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds alcohol for aroma and flavour, added after clarifying so it is not lost to heat.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavour of the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps give it body.

The step that matters

Strain twice through a scalded linen cloth. Egg white and shells bind cloudy particles as they heat, so the clarified liquid must be strained carefully through fine cloth to keep the jelly sparkling clear rather than murky.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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