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Dessert

Wine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with wine, lemon, sugar, cinnamon, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of boiling water.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine cold water, sugar, and the juice of the lemons.

  3. Add the gelatin mixture to the lemon mixture.

  4. Stir the mixture well.

  5. Incorporate the beaten egg white.

  6. Mix until combined.

  7. Add the stick of cinnamon and sherry wine.

  8. Let the mixture cool.

Set and chill

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

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

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

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools and chills.
Egg white
Helps clarify the jelly by binding small particles that are then strained out.
Sherry wine
Adds the main wine flavor and some acidity to the jelly.
Lemons
Add acidity and fresh citrus flavor that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the acidity of the lemon juice and wine.

The step that matters

Incorporate the beaten egg white. Gelatin needs to be fully dissolved and the mixture kept from boiling hard so the jelly sets clear and firm. Adding egg white and heating it on the stove is commonly used to clarify, so it should be whisked in evenly before the mixture cools to avoid streaks or cloudiness.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, gelatin, sugar, cinnamon, sherry, wine. 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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