Skip to main content
Dessert

Port Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made by simmering port wine with isinglass, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Port Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer 1 ounce of isinglass in a bottle of port wine.

  2. Add a small quantity of cinnamon, sugar, and cloves.

  3. Continue to simmer until the isinglass is fully dissolved.

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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Port wine + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the wine into a jelly as it cools.
Port wine
Liquid base that carries the main flavour and colour of the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tannins and alcohol of the port.

The step that matters

Simmer until the isinglass is fully dissolved. Isinglass is a collagen-based gelling agent that only sets the liquid once it has fully dissolved. Undissolved pieces can leave the jelly cloudy, lumpy, or unevenly firm.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes