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Dessert

Jelly From Gelatine

A gelatin-based jelly made with egg whites, sugar, water, sherry, and lemon juice and rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Jelly From Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.

  2. Stir with a whisk until just boiling.

  3. Let it stand off the heat for a few minutes.

Strain and set

  1. Strain the mixture into a mold.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Egg whites
Help clarify the liquid, as they coagulate on heating and trap cloudy particles.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, tender jelly as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sourness of the lemon.
Lemon juice and rind
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma, with the rind flavouring the liquid.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Stir with a whisk until just boiling. Egg whites must be whisked in and heated gently so they coagulate into a raft that traps cloudy particles. Stirring too late or boiling hard breaks up this raft, leaving the jelly cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, sherry. 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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