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Coffee Jelly
Half box Coxe's gelatine soaked half an hour in a half tea-cup cold water (as little water as possible), one quart strong coffee, made as if for the table and sweetened to taste; add the dissolved gelatine to the hot coffee, stir well, strain into a mold rinsed with cold water just before using, set on ice or in a very cool place, and serve with whipped cream. This jelly is very pretty, formed in a circular mold with tube in center; when turned out fill the space in center with whipped cream heaped up a little.—Mrs. A. Wilson, Rye, N. Y.
A straightforward set jelly that depends on only two things: the strength of the coffee and the correct ratio of gelatine to liquid. Both need translating.
- Half a box of gelatineCoxe's gelatine came in small boxes usually reckoned at about an ounce, so half a box is taken as roughly 1/2 oz — two modern 1/4 oz envelopes, about 4 1/2 teaspoons. That is close to the right amount to set one quart firmly enough to unmold.
- Bloom, then dissolveThe half-hour soak in the small amount of cold water is not optional; unbloomed gelatine dissolves in lumps. Note that a period half tea-cup is more like 2 to 3 tablespoons, and the recipe says to use as little water as possible. Stir the swollen mass into coffee that is hot but not boiling — prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's setting power.
- "Strong coffee, made as if for the table"The recipe wants ordinary table coffee at its stronger end, boiled or filtered. Brewing it to about double-strength drip, roughly 4 tablespoons of ground coffee per cup of water, compensates for the fact that chilling and the gelatine both mute flavor.
- Sweeten generouslySweeten the hot coffee before it sets, and taste it sweeter than you want the finished jelly — cold dulls sugar noticeably. Around 1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar per quart suits most palates.
- Strain and rinseStrain to catch coffee grounds and any undissolved gelatine. Rinsing the mold with cold water leaves a film that helps the jelly release; a light film of neutral oil works as well.
- Chilling time"Set on ice" means at least 4 hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is better for a jelly that will be turned out. Do not put it in the freezer — ice crystals ruin the clear texture.
- UnmoldingDip the mold in warm water for a few seconds, loosen the edge with a thin knife, and invert onto a chilled plate. The tube mold Mrs. Wilson describes is a ring mold; a modern nonstick Bundt pan works, though the fluting can grip.
- Yield and creamOne quart serves six to eight. Keep the whipped cream lightly sweetened and leave out the vanilla so the coffee stays forward.
Coffee jelly belongs to the great nineteenth-century vogue for molded gelatine desserts, which arrived once commercial gelatine made the dish possible for households without a stockpot of calf's foot simmering for a day. Cox's gelatine, a Scottish product widely sold in America by the 1870s, is named in the recipe as a brand a cook would recognize on sight, much as one might write "a packet of Knox" today; American cookbooks of the period frequently specify it. Buckeye Cookery gathers such recipes by contributor — this one from a Mrs. A. Wilson of Rye, New York — and the emphasis on appearance, a ring mold with whipped cream heaped in the center, reflects a period when a dessert's job was partly to be looked at before it was eaten. Coffee jelly never quite disappeared: it remains a standard cafe dessert in Japan, where it is generally traced to the early twentieth-century spread of Western-style coffee shops.