Home › The Principles of Cookery › Jelly Custard
Jelly Custard
Put a pint of new milk into a saucepan, sweeten and flavour according to taste, and when it is lukewarm, pour it over the yolks of six well-beaten fresh eggs. Stir the mixture over the fire until it is thick, but it must not boil; then add an ounce of dissolved isinglass. Wet half a dozen small moulds of different sizes in water, pour in the custard, and when firmly set turn out the moulds, arrange them prettily on a dish, and pour over them a syrup flavoured with lemon-peel, and coloured with two or three drops of cochineal. Time, half an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. 10d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A set custard from the era before packet gelatine, turned out of small moulds and flooded with a pink lemon syrup. Two things need translating: the setting agent and the temperature at which the custard is held.
- Never let it boilThe custard must thicken between about 170 and 180F; past that the yolks curdle and the set turns grainy. Stir constantly over low heat or a bain-marie until it coats the back of a spoon, then pull it off at once and strain it into a cold bowl.
- Isinglass and its replacementIsinglass is dried fish swim bladder, usually sturgeon, sold in leaves or shreds and far more variable in setting strength than modern gelatine. An ounce of it does not translate to an ounce of powdered gelatine: for a pint of custard firm enough to unmould, about 2 to 3 teaspoons (7-10g) of powdered gelatine, bloomed in cold water and stirred into the hot custard off the heat, is a workable equivalent, adjusted after a test set.
- A pintCassell's pint is the imperial 20 fl oz, so 2.5 US cups. Scale the gelatine if you use a 16 oz pint.
- New milkFresh unskimmed milk, as opposed to skimmed or separated, and in this period unpasteurised. Ordinary whole milk is the substitute.
- Sweeten and flavour to tasteNo quantity is given. Roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar per pint suits a dessert custard, with a vanilla pod, a strip of lemon peel or a bay leaf infused in the warming milk and strained out.
- CochinealStill sold as carmine or E120, made from scale insects, and not vegetarian. Any red food colouring gives the same faint pink; two or three drops is the whole intention, not a strong colour.
- The mouldsRinsing in cold water and leaving them wet is what lets the set custard drop free. Chill at least four hours; to release, dip the mould for three or four seconds in hot water and invert onto the dish.
- The syrupSimmer sugar and water with pared lemon peel until it thickens slightly, cool it completely, then colour it. Warm syrup poured over the moulds will melt their edges.
- YieldHalf a dozen small moulds, sufficient for five or six persons, as stated. The cost of 1s 10d marks this as a modest but not cheap dish.
Isinglass is the key to this recipe's date. Before commercial powdered gelatine became cheap and standard, cooks who wanted a jelly or a moulded cream relied either on calf's-foot stock boiled down for hours or on isinglass, the processed swim bladder of sturgeon, which was imported (largely from Russia) and sold by the ounce at the chemist as well as the grocer. It was expensive enough that adulteration was a standing complaint, and it also had a second life as a fining agent for beer and wine, which is why it still turns up on brewery labels. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery was a vast late-Victorian household compendium, and a plain boiled custard, set and turned out, belongs to the family of moulded creams and shape jellies that a dinner table of the 1880s and 90s expected.