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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made by dissolving isinglass in water, sweetening Madeira wine, and setting it in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in cold water.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the Madeira wine, then add the dissolved isinglass.

Set the jelly

  1. Heat the mixture until very hot, then strain it through a jelly cloth into a mold.

  2. Let it stand for 6 to 8 hours to set.

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

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

  2. Madeira wine + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Madeira wine + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Isinglass
Gelatine-like protein that sets the wine into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Madeira wine
Provides the main liquid and its distinctive flavour, and is the base of the jelly.
White sugar
Sweetens the wine to balance its acidity and the tart lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the sweetness of the wine.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until very hot, then strain it through a jelly cloth into a mold.. Isinglass must be fully dissolved before the mixture sets. Heating it thoroughly dissolves the isinglass evenly, and straining through a jelly cloth removes particles so the jelly sets clear and smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against madeira wine, sugar. 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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