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Dessert

Champagne Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with champagne, sherry, sugar, lemon, orange, spices, and egg.

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

Champagne Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring continuously.

  2. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

  3. Strain through a hot jelly bag or cloth.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a wetted mold and let it firm up.

  2. Once firm, turn out the jelly.

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. Champagne + sherrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 jelly as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the liquid.
Egg white and shell
Clarifies the liquid, binding impurities so the jelly strains clear.
Champagne
Adds acidity and a distinctive aroma to the jelly.
Sherry
Adds depth of flavour and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Straining through the jelly bag. The egg white and shell must coagulate during boiling and then be strained out gently. Forcing the liquid through or straining it cold can leave it cloudy, so the bag should stay hot and the liquid should drip rather than be pressed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, sherry, sugar, gelatin, orange, clove, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, sherry, sugar, gelatin, orange, clove, cinnamon. 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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