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Dessert

Savory Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with lemon, cinnamon, sugar, eggs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savory Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Pour 2 pints of boiling water over the soaked gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add the sugar, cinnamon stick, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Let cool until just warm.

Clarify with egg white

  1. Beat the egg whites in a bowl.

  2. Mix 1 teacup of jelly with the egg whites.

  3. Stir this mixture back into the jelly.

  4. Pour the jelly into a porcelain-lined kettle and heat on low, stirring constantly until it begins to boil.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Let it stand for 1-2 minutes.

  7. Skim off any foam.

  8. Remove the cinnamon stick and lemon rind.

  9. Pour the jelly through a flannel bag to clarify.

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

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

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 into a firm, wobbly jelly when it cools.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Attract impurities as they cook, so they can be skimmed off and the jelly runs clear.

The step that matters

Heating the egg white mixture. Heat must rise gently while stirring constantly. Stirring keeps the egg whites from setting in lumps before they can trap sediment, and the jelly must reach a boil without scorching on the base of the kettle.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, 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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