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Dessert

Blackberry IVine

A blackberry jelly made by macerating berries, clarifying with isinglass, and concentrating the juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and blackberry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Blackberry IVine

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Gather full ripe blackberries.

  2. Place the blackberries in a large vessel.

  3. Pour boiling water over the berries until covered.

  4. Once cool enough, bruise the berries until broken.

  5. Cover the vessel.

  6. Let the berries stand for 3–4 days until they rise to the top.

  7. Draw off the clear liquid into another vessel.

  8. Add 1 pound of sugar for every 10 quarts of liquid. Stir the liquid well.

  9. Let the mixture work for a week or ten days.

  10. Draw the liquid through a jelly bag into a large vessel.

Make the isinglass solution

  1. Soak 4 ounces of isinglass in 1 pint of white wine for 12 hours.

  2. Boil the isinglass until dissolved.

  3. Combine 1 gallon of blackberry juice with the dissolved isinglass.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Pour the boiled mixture into the vessel.

Settle and store

  1. Let it stand for a few days to settle.

  2. Draw off the settled jelly.

  3. Keep the jelly in a cool place.

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. White wine + blackberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + blackberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 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

Blackberries
Provide the flavour, colour and natural pectin that set the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the jelly keep its body and set.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm, clear jelly.
White wine
Acts as the solvent that softens the isinglass before it is dissolved.

The step that matters

Boiling the isinglass until dissolved. Isinglass must be fully dissolved before it is mixed into the juice. Undissolved pieces will not set evenly and leave a cloudy or grainy jelly.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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