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ORANGE, ISINGLASS JELLY (to mould with Oranges)
Prepare the orange jelly according to the directions given in the last recipe. When it is quite clear pour a small quantity into a damp mould, and put it aside until it is set. Divide a ripe China orange into quarters, and whilst freeing it entirely from the white skin be careful not to break the thin skin which covers the sections. Boil the pieces of orange in a little thin syrup for two or three minutes, then drain them well, and arrange them upon the layer of stiffened jelly in the mould. Pour the rest of the jelly over, and set it aside until it is sufficiently firm to turn out. If preferred, the mould may be filled with layers of orange and jelly, but of course one layer must stiffen before another is put on, and thus a much longer time will be required. Time, eight or ten hours to set the jelly. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A layered set jelly with orange segments suspended in it, from an era when clarity and a clean turn-out were the whole point of the dish. The hinge is patience: each layer must be fully set and only just cool before the next goes on, or the segments float and the layers weep into one another.
- Isinglass and its modern stand-inIsinglass is collagen from fish swim bladders, sold in leaf or shred form and still used mainly for fining beer. Powdered or leaf gelatine does the same job; because this page does not restate the base recipe, follow the quantities on your gelatine packet for a quart of liquid and err slightly firm so the jelly will turn out.
- The missing base recipe"According to the directions given in the last recipe" points back to an orange jelly the page does not restate; period orange jellies of this kind were typically juice, sugar, water and setting agent, clarified and strained. Any modern clear orange jelly works, provided it is genuinely clear — cloudy jelly ruins the effect the layering exists for.
- China orangeA nineteenth-century name for the sweet orange, Citrus sinensis, as opposed to the bitter Seville. Any sweet eating orange serves; navels segment most cleanly.
- Freeing the segmentsThe instruction to remove all white pith without piercing the membrane is the fiddly part. Peel with a knife rather than by hand, take the pith off in strips, and leave each segment's thin skin intact so it holds its shape in syrup.
- Thin syrup, two or three minutesA light sugar syrup, well short of equal parts sugar to water, brought to a simmer. The brief boil firms and sweetens the segments; longer and they collapse. Drain thoroughly, or the clinging syrup will streak the jelly.
- Damp mould, not oiledRinsing the mould in cold water and pouring the water out gives a film that helps release without leaving a greasy sheen. Chill the first layer only until it is tacky-firm, then pour the next at cool room temperature — hot jelly melts what is beneath it.
- Setting timeEight to ten hours assumes an unrefrigerated larder. In a modern fridge a single-layer quart mould sets in four to six hours; a multi-layer version still takes most of a day because each stratum needs an hour or more of its own.
- Turning outDip the mould in warm water for a few seconds, wipe it dry, and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position. Serve within a day — orange jelly gradually goes dull and the surface dries.
- YieldA quart mould serves eight to ten as a dessert, more if part of a spread.
Moulded jellies were a display food, and their prestige rested on cost and difficulty rather than flavour: isinglass had to be imported and clarified, oranges bought whole, and the whole thing built in slow layers on a cold shelf. The book quotes 2s. 6d., a substantial sum for a single dish, which is presumably why it is priced at all. The technique of suspending fruit in successive layers of clear jelly is generally associated with the confectioners of the eighteenth century and reached its most elaborate form in the mid-Victorian dinner table, where jellies stood on the sideboard as ornament as much as dessert. Cheaper commercial gelatine, increasingly available through the later nineteenth century, made the effect far easier to achieve.