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Lemon Filled with Jelly
Cut a small round about the size of a shilling from the stalk end of each lemon with a small sharp silver knife, then scoop out the inside with the handle of a tea-spoon, taking great care not to injure the rind. Throw the skins into cold water for an hour to harden them, drain them on a sieve, and when they are quite dry inside, half fill them with pink jelly. Place them in rows upon ice, and when the jelly is firm fill them up with white jelly, blancmange, or cream. Lay them on the ice once more, and, before serving, cut them neatly into quarters with a sharp knife. They should be arranged prettily on a glass dish, with a sprig of myrtle between each quarter. Probable cost of lemons, 1d. each.
A Victorian dessert conceit: the lemon shell becomes a mould, and the cut quarters show two layers of set jelly. The work is all in the hollowing and the chilling.
- The hinge: an unbroken rindAny nick or thin patch will leak warm jelly and ruin the layer. Scoop with the bowl end of a teaspoon handle, working the pith away in sections, and stop while there is still a little white pith left rather than scraping down to translucency.
- Silver knifeSpecified because 19th-century carbon steel blackened on contact with citrus acid and left grey marks on the rind. Any stainless paring knife does the job now.
- "A small round about the size of a shilling"Roughly a 1-inch opening. Cut it from the stem end so the fruit sits level, and keep the shells upright in a muffin tin or egg carton while filling.
- Pink and white jellyPeriod pink jelly was gelatine set with fruit juice or cochineal colouring; white was blancmange, or cream and gelatine. Modern leaf or powdered gelatine works, but set it slightly firmer than for a moulded jelly, since the quarters must hold a clean cut edge.
- Filling temperaturePour the first layer barely warm, not hot, or it will soften the rind and slump. Let it set fully firm before adding the second layer, and pour that cool too so the layers stay distinct rather than bleeding into one another.
- "Place them in rows upon ice"Straightforwardly the refrigerator. Allow two to three hours per layer for a full chill; overnight for the whole thing is easier.
- The myrtle sprigPurely decorative and not eaten. Mint or lemon balm reads better to modern diners and is edible.
- YieldEach lemon gives four quarters, so six lemons dress a dish for eight to twelve as part of a dessert course. Reserve the scooped pulp and juice for the jelly itself.
Cassell's belongs to the era when the dessert course was judged largely on appearance, and hollowed fruit shells filled with coloured jelly were one of the cheaper ways for a modest household to produce something that looked like confectioner's work. The technique is a scaled-down cousin of the great moulded jellies of the mid-century, made easier for ordinary kitchens by commercial packaged gelatine, which became steadily more available in the later decades of the century alongside the older business of boiling calves' feet for stock. The costing note "1d. each" is characteristic of the book, which gives a probable cost for most of its dishes. Pink layered against white was a common Victorian combination, the pink usually got from cochineal, then the ordinary red colouring for sweets.