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
Prepare
Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold water for 30 minutes.
Boil the cinnamon in 1 quart of water for 5 minutes.
Add the thinly cut yellow rind of the lemons and boil for 1 minute.
Make the jelly
Remove the cinnamon and lemon rinds, then add the sugar, wine, and soaked gelatine.
Strain the mixture through a fine strainer into molds.
Set and unmold
Once cooled, set the molds in the ice to harden.
To unmold, dip the molds in hot water for a moment.
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.
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,170 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cinnamon and sugar 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, sliceable jelly as it cools.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and adds body to the set texture.
- Wine
- Provides the main flavour and some acidity to the jelly.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.
The step that matters
Dipping the molds in hot water. A brief dip loosens the jelly from the mold wall without melting it. Leaving the molds in hot water too long softens the gelatine edges and can melt the jelly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, cinnamon, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against wine, cinnamon, sugar. 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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