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Raspberry and Currant Jelly
Strip the stalks from two pounds of juicy red currants and one pound of white currants, and put them into an earthenware jar with a cupful of fresh sound raspberries and a pound of loaf sugar. Put on the cover, place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water, and keep it simmering gently until the juice flows freely. Pour it off, and strain it through a jelly-bag till it is bright and clear. Put two ounces of isinglass or gelatine with a pint of cold water into a perfectly clean saucepan. Stir this on the fire till it boils, then draw it to the side, and let it simmer gently for half an hour. A few minutes before it is taken off the fire, put in with it a spoonful of cold water, a lump of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of good vinegar. Stir it for a minute, and remove the scum as it rises. Strain through a jelly-bag, mix it with the filtered juice, pour into a mould, and put in a cold place or upon ice to set. Probable cost, 3s. 6d.
A moulded fruit jelly rather than a preserve — the sugar is there for flavour, not for setting, and the whole thing depends on the gelatine. The one figure to distrust is the two ounces of isinglass.
- Gelatine quantityTwo ounces of isinglass or Victorian sheet gelatine to a pint of water reflects a weak, variably refined product that was boiled down for half an hour before use. Modern powdered gelatine sets far more reliably: about 1/2 oz (four teaspoons, or two standard envelopes) will set a pint of liquid to an unmoulded jelly. Using two ounces of the modern product gives something closer to rubber.
- IsinglassIsinglass is collagen from the swim bladders of sturgeon and related fish. It is still sold for clarifying beer and wine but is not a practical kitchen setting agent now; plain leaf or powdered gelatine is the direct replacement.
- The jar in boiling waterThis is a bain-marie. Set a covered heatproof bowl in a pan of simmering water and hold it there until the currants have collapsed and their juice runs freely; the recipe gives no time, and it will depend on the fruit. Direct heat scorches the fruit and dulls the colour.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a cone — ordinary granulated sugar is the equivalent. The pound with the fruit is a lot by modern taste; three-quarters of a pound gives a sharper jelly that suits currants better.
- White currantsWhite currants are a pale sport of the red and are now hard to buy. All red currants work; the jelly is simply darker and a little more acid.
- Vinegar and sugar in the gelatineThe acid, together with the spoonful of cold water thrown in at the end, helps raise a protein scum that is skimmed off and then strained out; what the sugar is doing is less clear. With modern gelatine the step is unnecessary and can be omitted.
- StrainingLet the juice drip through a jelly bag or a double layer of scalded muslin without squeezing. Pressing forces pulp through and the jelly turns cloudy, which is the one fault this recipe is written to avoid.
- Setting and turning outChill four to six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight for a large mould. Dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert.
Cassell's belongs to the high period of the moulded jelly, when a clear, bright, well-turned-out jelly was a test of a cook's patience rather than her invention — hence the fuss here about jelly-bags, filtering, and skimming, all in service of transparency. Isinglass, made from sturgeon bladders, was the prestige setting agent for exactly that reason: it gave a cleaner, less muddy set than the cheaper hoof-and-bone gelatines then on sale, though by the late nineteenth century commercial packaged gelatine was displacing it in domestic kitchens. Red currants were a staple of the English kitchen garden and ripen alongside raspberries, which is why the two are so often paired in Victorian preserves and jellies; the raspberries here are a scenting agent, a cupful against three pounds of currants. The "probable cost, 3s. 6d." is a hallmark of the book, which costed nearly every dish so that a household could budget a dinner in advance.