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Jelly, Liqueur
This jelly may be made with maraschino, noyau, Curacoa, or any other liqueur. Dissolve two ounces of best Russian isinglass in a pint of water, being careful to remove the scum as it rises, add a pound of loaf sugar, which has been boiled to a syrup with half a pint of water, and also carefully skimmed, the strained juice of a lemon, and a quarter of a pint of liqueur. Mix thoroughly, pour the jelly through a tamis into a damp mould, and set it in ice until wanted for use. If the jelly be very stiff the mould should be dipped for a moment in boiling water before turning it upon the dish. Time, half an hour to clarify the isinglass, ten minutes to clarify the sugar. Probable cost, exclusive of the liqueur, 2s. 8d. Sufficient for eight or ten persons.
A clear liqueur jelly of the sort that came out of a mould at a Victorian supper table. The one thing that decides its success is the clarifying: any scum or cloud left in the isinglass or syrup will show, because there is nothing in the dish to hide behind.
- Isinglass, and what to use insteadIsinglass is collagen from the swim bladders of sturgeon; the Russian grade was reckoned the purest and strongest. It is still sold, mainly to brewers and conservators, but powdered or leaf gelatine is the practical substitute. The exact swap is genuinely ambiguous — setting power varied by grade and by how long the cook boiled it down — so treat the 2 oz as a period figure rather than a conversion, and test a spoonful of any gelatine version on a cold saucer before moulding.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is 20 fl oz, not 16, and a quarter-pint of liqueur is 5 fl oz. Total liquid comes to roughly 1 3/4 imperial pints, or about a litre, which fills a good-sized mould.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a cone, prized because it dissolved clean and clarified well. Ordinary granulated white sugar behaves the same way; skim the syrup as instructed, since the surface scum is what clouds the finished jelly.
- TamisA tamis is a fine drum sieve of woven cloth or hair. A jelly bag or a double layer of scalded muslin in a sieve does the same job. Let it drip rather than squeezing it, or you push the fines through and lose the clarity you have just worked for.
- The liqueursCuracoa is curaçao, the bitter-orange liqueur. Maraschino means the clear cherry liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Noyau is a kernel-flavoured liqueur, historically made by steeping peach or apricot kernels; buy it commercially made rather than attempting a kernel infusion at home.
- Adding the alcoholMix the liqueur in once the isinglass and syrup have cooled somewhat. Stirred into boiling liquid, some of the aroma you are paying for will be driven off in the steam.
- Setting"Set it in ice" means an ice cave or an ice-packed pail. The refrigerator does it better: four to six hours, or overnight for a large mould.
- Turning outA second or two in hot water, then invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position. Longer than a moment and the outer surface goes slack and dull.
- YieldEight to ten, as stated, on the Victorian assumption that jelly is one of several sweets on the table. Serve smaller portions than a modern dessert; it is sweet and strongly flavoured.
Isinglass jellies were the aristocrats of the Victorian sweet course. Before commercial powdered gelatine became reliable and cheap, a clear, quivering, well-flavoured jelly announced both an expensive ingredient and a cook with the patience to clarify and skim it properly — hence the recipe's careful note of the cost, 2s 8d before the liqueur, which was not trifling. The liqueur version belongs to the same fashion that produced ribbon jellies, jellies moulded around fruit and jellies set in orange skins: the flavour arrives late and uncooked, so the whole point is a clean, glassy set carrying maraschino or curaçao undiluted by anything else. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for the late-nineteenth-century middle-class household, sits at the moment when such dishes were passing from the professional confectioner's repertoire into the reach of a competent domestic cook with a copper mould and access to ice.