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Dessert

Claret Jelly

A jelly made from claret, lemon rind, red currant jelly, brandy, sugar, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and red currant work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Claret Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the claret, lemon rind, red currant jelly, brandy, lump sugar, and isinglass in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Serve

  1. Serve the jelly with whipped 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. Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Claret
Provides the main liquid and the wine flavour that defines the jelly.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm jelly when cooled.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the acidity of the wine and currant jelly.
Red currant jelly
Adds fruit flavour, tartness, and colour to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the jelly's flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 5 minutes. Boiling dissolves the isinglass and sugar fully so the jelly sets evenly. Boiling too briefly can leave the isinglass unmelted and cause a weak or grainy set, while the alcohol in the brandy and wine can evaporate during long boiling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, brandy, sugar. 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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