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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with wine, sherry, brandy, lemon, sugar, egg whites, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour or more.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the soaked gelatine.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the egg whites, crushed shells, sugar, lemon juice, lemon peel, and cinnamon.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil for 3 minutes without stirring.

  3. Set it aside on the hearth for 5 minutes, then skim off any foam.

  4. Add the clear wine to the mixture.

  5. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag until clear.

Set and serve

  1. Rinse out molds with cold water and fill them with the jelly.

  2. Set the molds in a cold place to harden.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sherry + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Bind with impurities as they heat, helping the jelly come out clear when strained.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the jelly its body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Straining until clear. Egg whites and shells collect impurities as the mixture boils, and the jelly stays cloudy unless it is strained carefully through the jelly bag. Rushing this step leaves a hazy set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, brandy, sugar, egg, 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.

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Port 43Arrowroot 13Constantia 6Madeira 6Apricot 3Lemon 3 See all 239 →

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