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Dessert

Claret Jelly

A jelly made with claret wine, red currant jelly, sugar, gelatin, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Red wine and red currant work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Claret Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Boil until dissolved.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the wine, red currant jelly, and sugar; stir until dissolved.

Clarify and strain

  1. Beat the egg whites and shells, then stir them into the jelly.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat.

  3. Let it stand for 2 minutes, then strain through a bag.

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. Red wine + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Red currant + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together345 recipes

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

  5. Red wine + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together864 recipes

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

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.
Red wine
Gives the jelly its main flavour and deep red colour.
Red currant jelly
Adds fruity flavour, sweetness and natural setting power.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the wine's acidity.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated and trap sediment, clearing the jelly.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat. The egg whites must heat until they set into a raft that traps cloudy particles. Letting the mixture stand afterwards lets this raft settle, so straining through a bag gives a clear jelly.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, sugar, 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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