Skip to main content
Dessert

Gelee Au Punch

A punch-flavored jelly made with sugar, lemon, gelatin, kirsch, rum, sherry, cinnamon, coriander, egg, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gelee Au Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine sugar and 2 cups water in a copper stew-pan.

  2. Boil the mixture to a syrup.

  3. Add the thinly-peeled rind of the lemons and the soaked gelatine.

  4. Stir in the kirsch, rum, sherry, cinnamon, coriander seeds, and lemon juice.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  7. Beat the egg white and shell.

  8. Stir the beaten egg into the mixture.

  9. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.

  10. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  11. Pour the strained mixture into a mould to set.

Finish and serve

  1. Unmould and cut the custard into small diamond blocks or cubes.

  2. Set these in a fancy border mould layered with jelly.

  3. Put the mould in a cool place to set.

  4. Turn out the jelly.

  5. Fill the centre with whipped cream sweetened with castor sugar.

  6. Turn out, dish up, 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 + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Rum + sherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the strained liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Egg white
Clarifies the liquid as it heats, so cloudy particles bind and can be strained out.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the liquid and, when boiled, forms the syrup base of the jelly.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, light texture to the whipped centre filling.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a jelly bag. Straining after clarifying removes the coagulated egg and other solids, so the jelly sets clear rather than cloudy.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, rum, sherry, cinnamon, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, rum, sherry, cinnamon, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes