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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with wine, sugar, spices, lemon, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and syrup

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in 1½ pints of cold water.

  2. In a pot, combine the dissolved gelatine with 1½ pints of boiling water, sugar, spices, juice of 3 lemons, and the rind of 2 lemons.

Clarify and strain

  1. Add ⅓ cup of sherry and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Crush the egg shells and whip the egg whites until stiff, then add to the mixture and boil for 2 more minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture hot through a flannel cloth dipped in hot water three times.

Flavour and set

  1. When cool, add the remaining sherry and brandy.

  2. Pour into molds and place on ice to congeal.

  3. Optionally, add sliced oranges or grapes to the jelly before placing it on ice.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon and wine.
Egg whites
Coagulate when boiled, trapping cloudy particles so they can be strained out for a clear jelly.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity and rind adds bright citrus aroma.
Sherry
Adds fortified wine flavour and aroma to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds spirited flavour and aroma to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites and boiling for 2 minutes. Whipped whites and shells coagulate as the mixture heats, trapping cloudy particles. Straining afterward then gives a clear jelly, so the whites must be well whipped and the mixture properly heated before straining.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, lemon, egg, sherry, clove, brandy):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, lemon, egg, sherry, clove, brandy. 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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