Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Wine Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
In a saucepan, combine the egg white, lemon juice, gelatin, water, lemon rind, sugar, and cinnamon.
Beat the mixture with an egg beater until it reaches boiling point.
Remove from heat, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes.
Strain through cheesecloth, add the sherry, and pour into a mold that has been wet with cold water.
Set and serve
Chill until set and serve with whipped cream.
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.
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,778 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sherry + cinnamontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together649 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,273 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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 white
- Clarifies the liquid by trapping cloudy particles as it heats, leaving a clear jelly.
- Gelatin
- Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the lemon's acidity.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
- Sherry
- Adds wine flavour to the finished jelly.
The step that matters
Beating the mixture to boiling. Beating while heating lets the egg white coagulate and trap cloudy particles, which then get removed when straining. Stirring too little or straining too early can leave the jelly cloudy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, gelatin, sugar, sherry, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, gelatin, sugar, sherry, 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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