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Dessert

Champagne Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with champagne, sugar, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sugar 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 ↓

Champagne Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in the water until softened.

  2. Heat the water and dissolve the sugar in it.

  3. Add the soaked gelatin and stir until fully dissolved.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Once cool, stir in the lemon juice and then the champagne.

Set

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until 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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Gelatin + champagnetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Sugar + champagnetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Gelatin
Forms the firm, wobbly structure that lets the jelly set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and lemon.
Champagne
Provides the main flavor and a light, dry acidity to the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Add the champagne after cooling. Heat drives off the sparkle and some of the alcohol. Stirring the champagne in once the mixture has cooled slightly keeps more of its bubbles and flavor in the finished jelly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, champagne. 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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