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Dessert

Egg Jellies

A chilled dessert made from eggs, sugar, lemon rind, gelatin, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the sugar on the lemon rind.

  2. Squeeze the juice from the lemons.

  3. Add enough cold water to make 1 pint.

  4. Beat the eggs.

Make the jelly

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk until almost boiling, but do not boil.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Pour into little moulds rinsed with cold water.

Unmould and serve

  1. Once firm, dip the moulds in warm water for a moment.

  2. Turn the moulds onto a cold dish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Set the jelly into a delicate, tender structure as they cook gently.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Gelatine
Provides the firm setting that holds the jelly's shape when unmoulded.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

Whisk until almost boiling, but do not boil.. Eggs thicken as they heat but scramble if they boil, leaving lumps and a grainy texture. Keeping the mixture just below boiling lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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