Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with orange juice, water, saccharin, gelatin, egg yolk, optional curaçao, orange, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the water with a few shreds of orange peel.

  2. Add the orange juice and saccharin tablets.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the gelatin until fully melted, then remove from heat.

Enrich with egg yolk

  1. Beat the egg yolk.

  2. Gradually pour the hot jelly over the egg yolk, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Stir over low heat for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Steep orange sections in brandy.

  2. Arrange the orange sections around the jelly when serving.

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. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Orange + gelatintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  4. Gelatin + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Gelatin + brandytop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together62 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken the mixture when gently heated.
Orange juice
Provides the main orange flavour and a little acidity.
Saccharin
Adds sweetness without sugar.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot jelly into the egg yolk. Egg yolk proteins set when hot, so curdling is a risk. Adding the hot jelly slowly while stirring constantly warms the yolk gradually and keeps it smooth. Pouring it in all at once can scramble the yolk.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, egg, brandy. 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.

More orange jelly recipes

Seville 17Cake 13Florida 8Baskets 8Lemon 4China 3 See all 328 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes