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Jelly, French
Make a wine jelly (see MADEIRA WINE JELLY), and before it begins to thicken pour into it a pint of carefully picked and cleaned raspberries, distributing them evenly through the liquid; then put it on ice or in a cool place to harden. Serve with sugar and cream.
A fruit-suspension jelly that depends entirely on one thing: catching the wine jelly at the moment it will hold berries in place. The rest is assembly.
- The hinge — catch the setting pointThe hinge — catch the setting point. The recipe says to add the berries "before it begins to thicken," i.e. while the jelly is still pourable but cooled and beginning to drag slightly on the spoon. Pour too warm and the berries float to what will become the top; leave it too late and the jelly sets in streaks around them and never looks clear.
- The parent recipeThe parent recipe. This is not a standalone formula — you need the book's Madeira wine jelly, which in this period would be a clarified gelatin jelly (calf's foot, isinglass or sheet gelatin) flavoured with Madeira and sugar; other flavourings such as lemon or brandy may or may not appear in the book's version.
- Gelatin strengthGelatin strength. Historic gelatin was less standardised than modern product, so quantities in old recipes are not directly transferable. With modern powdered gelatin, roughly 1 tablespoon (about 1/4 oz) per pint of liquid gives a soft set; allow rather more for a jelly firm enough to unmould, slightly less if you are serving it in glasses.
- Alcohol and setA high proportion of wine weakens a gelatin set. If the Madeira jelly is turning out soft, do not simply add more wine to boost flavour; increase the gelatin instead.
- A pint of raspberriesA pint of raspberries. A dry pint runs roughly 8-12 oz (250-340 g) depending on the fruit, or about two supermarket punnets. "Carefully picked" means gone over for stems, leaves and any berry beginning to soften — a spoiled berry can taint what surrounds it.
- Do not wash if you can avoid itRaspberries absorb water and bleed into the jelly, clouding it. If they must be rinsed, do it briefly and dry them thoroughly on a cloth before they go in.
- "On ice or in a cool place"The refrigerator, 4 hours minimum for a jelly served in glasses and 6 to 8 hours, or overnight, for one that must be turned out of a mould.
- UnmouldingUnmoulding. Dip the mould in hot water only briefly — a few seconds — or the outer layer liquefies and the berries near the surface slump.
- Yield and servingServing. The recipe does not state how much wine jelly to make, so yield depends on the parent recipe. "Cream" here means unwhipped pouring cream, handed separately with a bowl of sugar.
Wine jellies were a set piece of the nineteenth-century supper table, and their appeal was as much visual as gustatory — a clear, trembling, brilliantly coloured jelly demonstrated that the cook could clarify stock with egg white and command a supply of ice. The name here is loose: "French" in Victorian English cookery books frequently signals nothing more than refinement or a moulded, dressed presentation rather than any documented French original. What is distinctive is the suspension of whole fruit in the set jelly. The entry is a short cross-referenced item, with the substance of the recipe sitting elsewhere — a normal habit in a dictionary-format cookery work, where every technique is meant to be looked up rather than repeated.