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Dessert

Coloced Jelly

A jelly made with water, isinglass, brandy, lemon juice, egg whites and shells, served chilled with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Coloced Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a kettle, combine the syrup of your choice with 1 pint of water.

  2. Add 1 ounce of isinglass, ⅓ cup of brandy, and the juice of 1 lemon.

  3. Add the whites and shells of 3 eggs and bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag into molds.

Set and serve

  1. Let the jelly cool completely in the molds.

  2. Serve chilled with sugar and cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Eggs
Whites and shells are boiled in to help clarify the liquid, leaving it clear.
Brandy
Adds alcohol flavour and aroma to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup.

The step that matters

Letting the jelly cool completely in the molds. The isinglass sets only as the liquid cools, so the jelly must cool fully before it is unmolded or served. Rushing this leaves it soft and likely to collapse.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, egg, sugar, cream. 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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