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Dessert

Claret Jelly

A dessert made from claret wine, jam, sugar, lemon, water, gelatine, and brandy, set into moulds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Claret Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the water.

  2. Add all the other ingredients and melt slowly together.

  3. Once well mixed, color with cochineal.

  4. Strain through muslin and set in dariole moulds rinsed with cold water.

Alternative setting

  1. Alternatively, set the jelly in a border mould and serve with whipped cream in the center.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Raspberry + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

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

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Claret
Provides the main liquid and the wine flavor of the jelly.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
Raspberry or strawberry jam or syrup
Adds fruit flavor, sweetness and body to the jelly.
Lemon
Adds acidity and brightness that cut through the sweetness of the wine and sugar.

The step that matters

Strain through muslin and set in dariole moulds rinsed with cold water. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and the mixture kept from boiling so it sets clear and firm; straining removes solids that would cloud the jelly. Rinsing moulds with cold water helps the set jelly release cleanly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, brandy, 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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