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Cherry Jelly in Moulds
Boil six pounds of Morella cherries till they come to a pulp, which will be in about twenty minutes. Strain through a jelly-bag. Measure the liquor, and allow three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar to every pint. Return to the pan with the sugar, and let it boil. Add one and a half ounces of melted isinglass. Strain again through a jelly-bag into a mould, and set it in a cool place, or in the ice chest, until wanted. Probable cost, 4s.
A straightforward set fruit jelly, but two things in it need translating: the setting agent and the cherry. Everything else is ordinary jam-making practice.
- The hinge: do not boil the isinglass inThe hinge: do not boil the isinglass hard -- The sugar syrup is boiled first and the melted isinglass goes in afterwards. The recipe does not say to draw the pan off the heat, but prolonged boiling degrades any collagen setting agent, so add it at the end and keep it below a rolling boil or the jelly will stay slack.
- Morella cherriesAn older spelling of Morello, the dark sour cherry used for pies and brandied fruit. Sweet dessert cherries will give a flat, cloying jelly with no acidity to balance the sugar; if you cannot get Morellos, use another sour variety such as Montmorency.
- IsinglassPurified sturgeon or other fish swim bladder, sold in leaves or shreds and now mainly a brewing fining. Modern leaf or powdered gelatine does the same job but not at the same weight — as a rough guide a mould firm enough to turn out needs somewhere between about 1/4 and 1/2 oz (7-14 g) powdered gelatine per pint of liquid, depending on how firm you want it. The original's 1 1/2 oz for an unstated volume of juice is not a reliable conversion, so judge by the standard gelatine ratio for the liquor you actually have.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in a cone and broken up for use; plain granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent. Three-quarters of a pound to the pint is about 340 g per 570 ml of juice.
- StrainingLet the pulp drip through the jelly bag under its own weight. Squeezing or pressing forces fine solids through and the jelly will be cloudy rather than clear, which is the whole point of moulding it.
- Cool place, ice chestA larder or an ice-cooled box. The refrigerator does this better: allow at least four to six hours, and overnight for a large mould.
- Yield and unmouldingSix pounds of cherries will give roughly 2 to 3 pints of juice, depending on how long the bag is left to drip — enough for a large mould serving eight to ten. Wet the mould before filling, and dip it briefly in hot water to turn out.
- Probable cost4s. is four shillings, a late-Victorian retail figure Cassell's gave so a cook could price a dish against the household budget. It has no modern equivalent worth quoting.
Clear moulded fruit jellies were a set piece of the nineteenth-century supper table, valued less for flavour than for looking like polished glass, and the technique — pulp, strain, sweeten, set, strain again — was expected to transfer to any acid fruit. Isinglass was the standard setting agent before commercial powdered gelatine became cheap and reliable; it was prized because good grades set almost colourless and left no meaty taste, unlike calf's-foot stock, which was the older and far more laborious alternative. The Morello was the practical cook's cherry in Britain: sour enough to be worth cooking and widely grown against garden walls.