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Dessert

Egg Jelly

A custard-like dessert made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with the cinnamon and lemon rind.

  2. Add the sugar to the bowl.

  3. Stir the egg yolks in the bowl.

  4. Pour the boiling milk onto the egg yolks.

  5. Stir the mixture well.

  6. Return the mixture to the pan.

  7. Stir the mixture over low heat for a few minutes without boiling.

  8. Strain the mixture into a clean bowl.

Add the gelatine and set

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little water.

  2. Drain the gelatin.

  3. Melt the gelatin over low heat.

  4. Strain the melted gelatin into the custard before it cools.

  5. Mix the custard well.

  6. Let the custard cool.

  7. Pour the mixture into molds.

  8. Refrigerate until set.

  9. Unmold in warm water.

  10. Turn out.

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

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

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard and add richness.
Gelatine
Sets the custard into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard and provides moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if they boil, so the custard must stay below a simmer.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cinnamon, 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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