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Dessert

Madeira Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with syrup, lemon juice, and Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Madeira Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Add the gelatine to the syrup and let it dissolve.

  2. Simmer the mixture until well incorporated.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

Set and serve

  1. Place the mold in the refrigerator or a cold place to set.

  2. Once set, turn out the jelly and serve.

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. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Syrup + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Provides the structure that lets the liquid set into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Syrup
Forms the sweet liquid base that the jelly is built from.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup.
Madeira or sherry
Adds a fortified wine aroma and flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine. Gelatine must fully dissolve into the syrup before the mixture cools. Undissolved granules leave specks and create weak, uneven areas, so the jelly may not set evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sherry. 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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