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Dessert

Jelly of Nelson’s Gelatine

A gelatin dessert made with Nelson’s gelatine, lemon, sugar, sherry, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Jelly of Nelson’s Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Stir in 1 pint of boiling water.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the lemon peel, strained juice, and sugar.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Whisk the whites and shells of 2 eggs together.

  5. Stir the whisked eggs into the mixture.

  6. Let the mixture stand for 2-3 minutes.

  7. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  8. Stir in ½ pint of sherry and optional brandy.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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 jelly as it cools.
Eggs
Whites and shells gather impurities during boiling, which clarifies the jelly when strained.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour to the jelly.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Straining through the jelly bag. Egg whites and shells must be left to stand and then strained through the bag, otherwise they stay cloudy in the finished jelly. Letting the mixture settle before straining lets the particles collect so the jelly comes out clear.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, brandy, egg. 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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