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Dessert

Champagne Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with champagne, sherry, citrus, spices, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Champagne Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine water, champagne, sherry, loaf sugar, gelatine, lemon juice and rind, orange juice and rind, cloves, cinnamon, and egg white and shell in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil while stirring.

  3. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

  4. Strain through a hot jelly bag or cloth.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and let it firm up.

  2. Once firm, turn out the jelly.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Champagne + sherrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg white and shell
Clarifies the liquid, collecting cloudiness so the jelly strains clear.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright flavour to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Strain through a hot jelly bag or cloth. The liquid must stay hot so the gelatine does not begin to set early. Straining slowly through a fine cloth removes the coagulated egg white and solids, giving a clear jelly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, sherry, sugar, lemon, orange, 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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