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Jelly, Whipped
Take the remains of any cold jelly. Dissolve it over a gentle fire, put it into a basin, and place this upon some rough ice mixed with salt. Whisk it briskly until it is well frothed. Pour it into a mould, and set this at once in ice. When firm, turn it out on a dish. Time, a few minutes to dissolve.
A thrift entry: leftover set jelly is remelted, whipped to a foam and re-set, doubling in volume and turning clear amber into opaque pale mousse. The whole thing turns on temperature control.
- The hinge: whip at the syrupy stageMelted jelly will not hold air until it is on the edge of setting. Chill it, whisking now and then, until it mounds slightly on the whisk — roughly the consistency of raw egg white — then beat hard. Whipped while still warm and thin, it simply subsides.
- Gentle fire means gentleSet the basin of jelly over hot, not boiling, water and take it off as soon as it liquefies; gelatin needs no more than gentle warmth. Prolonged heating near the boil can weaken its setting power, and a re-melted jelly has already been cooked once.
- Ice and saltRough ice mixed with coarse salt was the Victorian way of getting a bath below freezing point. A bowl of ice and water, or a bowl set over a second bowl of ice, does the same job for whipping; the refrigerator will serve for setting the filled mould.
- Don't freeze it"Set this at once in ice" means chill hard, not freeze solid. A frozen gelatin foam weeps badly on thawing. Two hours in the refrigerator gives a cleaner set than a salted ice bath you have to watch.
- The mouldRinse the mould with cold water and leave it wet, or wipe it with a trace of flavourless oil. To turn out, dip to the rim in warm water for five seconds and invert onto a wetted dish so the shape can be slid into place.
- Which jellies workAny clear gelatin jelly — wine, lemon, orange, calf's foot. Jellies containing cream or fruit pulp whip unevenly, and a commercial jelly with reduced gelatin may not carry the extra air. Jelly that has been sitting more than a couple of days in the refrigerator should be discarded rather than remelted.
- WhiskingA hand whisk takes five to ten minutes of steady work; a stand or hand mixer takes two or three. Stop when the mass is white, opaque and roughly doubled — over-beating past the setting point breaks it into curds.
- YieldA pint of jelly whips to about a quart of foam, enough for four to six small moulds or one 1-quart mould.
Whipped jellies were a well-established nineteenth-century device, helped by the ready availability of commercial gelatine and isinglass, which made jelly-making a matter of dissolving rather than of boiling calves' feet for hours. This sits among the frugal entries: a half-eaten mould of wine or lemon jelly left over from a dinner could be recast as an entirely different-looking dish, pale and opaque instead of clear, and sent up again without apology. The ice and salt reflects the spread of imported block ice in British towns during the later nineteenth century, though an ice pail was still far from universal; confectioners had long used a salted ice bath to reach temperatures below freezing point.