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Dessert

Jelly Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with egg yolks, lemon juice, sherry, and sugar, set in a mold and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Jelly Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in a little water.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar.

  3. Add the milk and dissolved gelatine, then stir over low heat until thick like custard.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice, sherry, and beaten egg whites. Mix well and pour into a mold.

Set and serve

  1. Refrigerate until the next day.

  2. Serve with 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. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable pudding as it chills.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness and color.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to lighten its texture and add airy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the lemon and sherry.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; high heat can scramble them into lumps, so the custard should be stirred over low heat until it coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, sugar, milk. 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.

More gelatin pudding recipes

Lemon 16Fruit 9Chocolate 5Milk 3Pineapple 3 See all 48 →

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