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Dessert

Claret Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with claret wine, jam, brandy, sugar, lemon, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Claret Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the water.

  2. Add all the other ingredients and melt slowly together.

  3. Color the mixture with cochineal.

  4. Strain through muslin.

Set and serve

  1. Set in dariole moulds rinsed with cold water, or alternatively set the jelly in a border mould.

  2. Serve with whipped cream in the center.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Raspberry + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

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

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Claret
Provides the main liquid and wine flavour of the jelly.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Raspberry or strawberry jam or syrup
Adds fruit flavour, sweetness and body to the jelly.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the wine flavour.

The step that matters

Strain through muslin. Straining removes bits of fruit, pulp and undissolved matter so the jelly sets clear and smooth. Skipping it leaves cloudiness and grit in the finished set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, brandy, 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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