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Dessert

Egg Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with lemon juice, sherry, brandy, sugar, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Egg Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the gelatine, sugar, lemon juice, sherry, egg white, cinnamon, cloves, and cold water in a clean enamelled saucepan.

  2. Whisk the mixture until it is nearly boiling and the gelatine is fully dissolved, but do not let it boil.

  3. Remove from heat, cover with a lid or plate, and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Clarify and finish

  1. Strain the mixture through a cloth, passing it through more than once if necessary to achieve clarity.

  2. Add the brandy; the jelly is ready for use.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg white
Clarifies the liquid by trapping impurities when heated, leaving it clear.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and depth to the jelly.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling. Whisking until nearly boiling dissolves the gelatine and lets the egg white coagulate and trap impurities. Boiling would cloud the jelly and can break up the clarifying raft, so the mixture must stay just below the boil.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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