Skip to main content
Dessert

Rum Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from white wine, sugar, isinglass, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: White wine and rum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Rum Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the white wine and lump sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until the sugar dissolves into a syrup.

Add the isinglass

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in a small amount of warm water.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Mix the strained isinglass with the warm syrup until well combined.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool slightly.

Flavour and set

  1. Stir in the desired amount of old Jamaica rum.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold or individual glasses.

  3. Refrigerate until set.

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 + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. White wine + sugartop 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

White wine
Forms the liquid base of the jelly and carries the sweetness and acidity.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, dissolved in the wine, forms the syrup that gives body to the set.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm jelly when chilled.
Old jamaica rum
Adds aroma and warm flavour to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Add the isinglass to the warm syrup. Isinglass must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed before cooling, because lumps or uneven distribution leave weak, patchy set. The mixture should be only slightly cooled before setting so it stays fluid enough to blend well.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes