Orange Jelly
One paper Cox's gelatine, the juice of twelve oranges, and juice of one lemon, two cups sugar, one and one-half pints boiling water; soak the gelatine in one cup cold water, then add the boiling water, orange and lemon juice and sugar, strain into moulds, wet with cold water and set on the ice to harden.
A straightforward moulded fruit jelly whose only real puzzle is the gelatine measurement. Everything else is a matter of getting the juice clear and the mould cold.
- "One paper Cox's gelatine"Cox's gelatine was sold in paper packets, commonly reckoned at about 1 oz. This recipe carries close to two quarts of liquid; 4 envelopes of modern powdered gelatine (1/4 oz each, roughly 28 g total) is a reasonable starting point. Bloom strength varies between brands, so follow the setting ratio on the box rather than the count of packets.
- Liquid totalOne cup cold water for soaking, 1 1/2 pints boiling water, and the juice of twelve oranges and one lemon comes to something near 2 quarts. Twelve oranges give about 3 cups of juice.
- Do not boil the gelatine with the juiceThe boiling water goes onto the bloomed gelatine to dissolve it, and the fruit juice goes in afterward. Heating fresh citrus juice hard dulls the flavour and turns the colour muddy, and prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's set.
- Strain seriously"Strain into moulds" is the step that decides whether this looks like glass or like cloudy pulp. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve lined with damp muslin; orange pulp and pith will otherwise suspend through the jelly and cloud it.
- SugarTwo cups is generous. Taste the strained mixture warm before moulding, since a jelly tastes less sweet cold than it does hot, but 1 1/2 cups is usually plenty.
- "Set on the ice"The nineteenth-century instruction means the icebox; use the refrigerator. Rinsing the mould with cold water, as directed, helps release the jelly, and a large mould needs 6 to 8 hours, better overnight.
- UnmouldingDip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a wetted plate, which lets you slide the jelly into position rather than having it stick where it lands.
- YieldTwo quarts fills a large ring or charlotte mould and serves 10 to 12, or eight to ten individual cups.
Cox's gelatine, made by J. & G. Cox at Gorgie Mills in Edinburgh, was one of the brands that took jelly-making out of the hands of cooks who had to boil down calves' feet for a day to get it. Sold in papers of thin sheets, it turned moulded jelly from a display piece for households with a large kitchen staff into something a single cook could produce for a Sunday supper table. The other thing this recipe assumes is ice: a jelly of this size is unlikely to set at room temperature outside a cold winter larder, and the casual direction to "set on the ice" marks a household with a stocked icebox, still not universal when books like this were compiled. Citrus jellies in particular were prized for their clarity, and the insistence on straining reflects a period aesthetic in which a jelly was judged first by whether you could see light through it.