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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made by setting Madeira wine with isinglass, sugar, lemon, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve 1 ounce of Russia isinglass in 1 cup of water.

  2. Sweeten and flavor 1 quart of Madeira wine, then add the dissolved isinglass.

  3. Heat the mixture until very hot, then strain it through a fine sieve into a mold.

  4. Let it stand for 6 to 8 hours.

Clarify and strain

  1. Soak 2 ounces of Coopers refined isinglass in 1 pint of cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Wash the soaked isinglass clean.

  3. Place the cleaned isinglass in a pot with 3 pints of cold water, 1 pint of wine, 3 lemons, 1 pound of sugar, and the whites and shells of 5 eggs.

  4. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, then strain it through a jelly bag.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Madeira wine + winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Russia isinglass
Sets the wine into a firm, clear jelly as it cools.
Madeira wine
Provides the main flavor and color of the jelly.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated and trap cloudy particles, clarifying the liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the wine's dryness.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright aroma that lift the sweet wine flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling and straining the clarifying mixture. Egg whites and shells must be brought to a boil so the whites coagulate and trap impurities as they rise. Straining through a jelly bag then removes them, leaving a clear jelly. Rushing or disturbing the mixture can leave it cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against madeira wine, wine, sugar, 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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Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

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