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Dessert

Russian Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with sugar, orange juice, Sauternes, lemon juice, and egg beater.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Russian Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in boiling water.

Make the jelly

  1. Add sugar, Sauterne, and fruit juices to the mixture.

  2. Cool slightly, then set the bowl in a pan of ice water.

  3. Beat the mixture with an egg beater until frothy and firm enough to mold.

  4. Turn the mixture into a mold and chill until set.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provides the gel structure that lets the jelly set firm enough to unmold.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.
Sauterne
Adds wine flavour and aroma to the jelly.
Orange juice
Adds fruit flavour and acidity to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until frothy and firm enough to mold. Cooling the mixture over ice water before beating lets it thicken to a light, airy texture. If it is beaten while still warm or left too long, it may not hold its shape in the mold, while beating too little leaves it runny.

“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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