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Dessert

Gelatine Jelly

A gelatin dessert made with calf's feet gelatin, sugar, lemon, eggs, sherry, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Gelatine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ pint of cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling water and stir until completely dissolved.

  3. Add the juice and rind of 2 lemons, ensuring no seeds are included.

  4. Mix in 5 oz. of loaf sugar and ½ pint of sherry or raisin wine.

Clarify and strain

  1. Whisk the whites and shells of 2 eggs and stir them into the mixture.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then strain through a jelly bag until clear.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  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.
Eggs
Whites and shells collect impurities during boiling, helping the jelly become clear.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the jelly's body and flavour.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet jelly.
Sherry or raisin wine
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain through a jelly bag until clear. Boiling with egg whites and shells causes impurities to cling to them, which are removed by straining. Rushing the straining or skipping the boil leaves the jelly cloudy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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