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Dessert

Wines — Continued

A gelatinous dessert made with wine, cloves, peppercorns, egg whites, and lemon, set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wines — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the wine base

  1. Combine cloves, peppercorns, and egg whites with shells in a saucepan. Stir over heat until boiling.

  2. Mix in Madeira and strain through a jelly bag until clear.

  3. Pour jelly into a mold and pack in ice until firm.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak gelatine in cold water for 3 hours.

  2. Add lemon rind, lemon juice, peach leaves or essence, and powdered sugar to the gelatine. Let stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour boiling water over the mixture, stir until gelatine dissolves, and strain.

  4. Add white wine and strain again through a flannel bag without squeezing.

  5. Wet the inside of a mold with cold water, pour in the jelly, and let it stand in a cool place overnight.

Unmold

  1. Turn out the next day.

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 + peachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Peach + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Bind fine particles and sediment so they can be strained out, leaving the liquid clear.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Madeira
Adds a rich, fortified wine flavour to the jelly.
White wine
Provides the main liquid and wine flavour of the finished jelly.
Powdered white sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the wine jelly.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatine fully before dissolving. Gelatine must hydrate in cold water before heating so it dissolves evenly; undissolved granules leave gritty spots and weaken the set.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, peach, sugar, white wine. 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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Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

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