Skip to main content
Dessert

Port Wine Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from port wine, water, sugar, gelatin, and red currant jelly, colored with cochineal.

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

Why it works: Port wine and currant work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Port Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, sugar, red currant jelly, and gelatin.

  2. Stir over low heat until dissolved.

  3. Add half of the port wine and a few drops of cochineal for color.

  4. Strain the mixture through a muslin or jelly bag.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the remaining port wine before serving.

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. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Port wine
Provides the main flavour and a deep colour, and its alcohol keeps the set slightly softer.
Leaf gelatine
Forms the gel structure that makes the jelly set and hold its shape.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the wine and currant jelly.
Red-currant jelly
Adds fruit flavour, tartness and body to the liquid.

The step that matters

Dissolve gelatine fully over low heat. Gelatine must dissolve completely without boiling; overheating weakens its gelling power, and undissolved granules leave a grainy or weak set.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, sugar. 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

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes