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Dessert

Lemon Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from lemon juice, sugar, isinglass, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lemon Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Peel 3 lemons and pour 1 pint of boiling water over the rind.

  2. Let the mixture infuse for 1 hour.

Make the jelly

  1. In a lined saucepan, combine the sugar, isinglass, and lemon peel with ½ pint of water.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the lemon juice and the infused rind, then add them to the saucepan.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim well.

  5. Add the sherry to the mixture.

  6. Strain the mixture through a bag.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the jelly into a mold that has been wetted or soaked in water.

  2. Refrigerate the mold until the jelly sets.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps give it a clear, firm body.
Lemons
Supply the juice for tartness and the peel for aromatic lemon flavour.
Sherry
Adds a wine flavour and a little acidity to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Skim the mixture well before adding the sherry. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the jelly. Bringing it back to a boil and skimming thoroughly keeps the finished set clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry. 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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