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Dessert

Lemon Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from lemon juice, water, sugar, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine lemon juice, water, loaf sugar, cinnamon, cloves, gelatine, lemon rind, egg whites, and crushed egg shells in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk the mixture until it boils.

  3. Boil well.

  4. Strain the mixture through a clean, scalded cloth into a basin rinsed with hot water until clear.

Set and serve

  1. Once clear, pour the jelly into dariole moulds rinsed with cold water or one large mould.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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

Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the jelly its flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped whites bind to impurities as they heat, helping clarify the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.

The step that matters

Strain through a scalded cloth. Straining through a clean, scalded cloth removes the egg white and shell particles that cloud the jelly. Pouring while the liquid is still hot and clear keeps the finished jelly bright and transparent.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, clove, 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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