Skip to main content
Dessert

Barley Jelly

A sweet gelatinous dessert made from boiled pearl barley, sugar, lemon juice, white wine, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Barley Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley liquid

  1. Boil 1 cup of pearl barley in 4 cups of cold water.

  2. When it boils, pour off the water and add another 4 cups of cold water.

  3. Simmer gently for 3 hours, stirring frequently.

  4. Strain the mixture and sweeten with ¼ cup of white sugar.

Set the jelly

  1. Add the juice of 1 lemon and ⅓ cup of white wine.

  2. Dissolve ¼ ounce of isinglass in a little water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Pour into a mold and let 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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Barley + white winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Pearl barley
Its starch and soluble compounds thicken the simmered liquid into a body suited to a jelly.
Isinglass
Collagen-based gelatin that sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sweetness.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve the isinglass fully before adding it. Gelatin only sets properly when fully dissolved and evenly dispersed; undissolved granules leave soft spots or streaks. Adding it to a hot mixture and letting it cool gently also helps it set evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar, white wine, gelatin. 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 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes