Skip to main content
Dessert

Punch Jelly, Superior

Punch jelly made with lemon and orange rinds, sugar, rum, brandy, spices, gelatin, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Punch Jelly, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Infuse the spices in the water over gentle heat.

  2. Rasp the fruit rinds and add the sugar.

Make and clarify the jelly

  1. Add the lemon juice, orange juice, and gelatine soaked in some of the water.

  2. Clarify the mixture with the whites and shells of eggs.

  3. Add the rum and brandy, then mold as usual.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body and set.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Eggs
Whites and shells clarify the mixture, collecting particles so the jelly is clear.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour.

The step that matters

Clarify the mixture with the whites and shells of eggs. Egg whites and shells are heated with the liquid so proteins coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Stirring or boiling too vigorously breaks up the raft, leaving the jelly cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, rum, brandy, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, rum, brandy, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes