Skip to main content
Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with wine, sugar, brandy, lemon juice, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve and flavour

  1. Soften the gelatin in the cold water.

  2. Add the boiling water and sugar.

  3. Mix in the sherry or madeira, brandy, and lemon juice.

Strain and set

  1. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth.

  2. Optionally, decorate the mold with maraschino cherries.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatin
Forms the firm, wobbly structure as the liquid cools and sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly a smoother body.
Sherry or madeira
Provides the main wine flavour and a little sweetness and depth.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited note to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Soften the gelatin in the cold water. Gelatin must fully hydrate in cold water before boiling water is added. This lets it dissolve evenly without lumps, so the jelly sets firm and uniform.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, brandy, gelatin. 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 wine jelly recipes

Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes