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Dessert

Wine Gelatine

A gelatin dessert made with wine, brandy, lemon juice, sugar, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of loaf sugar and the juice of 4 lemons.

Make the gelatin

  1. Stir in 1 pint of sherry or port and 4 tablespoons of brandy.

  2. Pour 3 pints of boiling water over the mixture and stir until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture into molds.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Sherry or port
Adds the main wine flavour and a little sweetness and body.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth, and helps keep the set jelly flavourful.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the wine.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine in the boiling water. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in hot liquid before setting, or it will form grainy specks and set unevenly. Soaking it in cold water first lets it hydrate so it dissolves smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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