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Dessert

Jelly From Gelatine

A gelatin-based jelly flavored with mace, cloves, cinnamon, lemon zest, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Jelly From Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavourings

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of water.

  2. In a clean saucepan, combine the water, sugar, mace, and cloves.

  3. Thinly peel the skin of the lemons and add the peeled skin to the saucepan.

  4. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and strain the juice into the saucepan.

  5. Break the cinnamon into small pieces.

Clarify and simmer

  1. Add the cinnamon along with the egg whites and shells.

  2. Whisk the mixture over heat until it boils.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Strain

  1. Strain the mixture twice through a clean flannel jelly bag that has been heated with hot water.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fragrant oil from the peel for aroma.
Egg whites and shells
Coagulate with heat and trap particles, clarifying the jelly to a clear finish.
Cinnamon
Adds warm spiced aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture over heat until it boils. Egg whites must be whisked in as the liquid heats so they do not set in lumps. When they coagulate they carry impurities up, so gentle simmering afterward, not hard boiling, lets a clear layer form for straining.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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