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Raspberry and Currant Mould
Soak an ounce and a half of gelatine in a little cold water for an hour. Strip the stalks from a pound of raspberries and a pound of red currants. Put the fruit into a saucepan with half a pint of water and half a pound of loaf sugar, place it on the fire, stir it frequently to keep it from burning and let it boil. Let it boil for four or five minutes until the sugar is perfectly dissolved, and rub the pulp through a hair sieve. Set the gelatine on the fire, and let it boil until it is dissolved, mix it with the pulp, and pour the mixture into a mould made open in the centre. When it is stiff, turn it out upon a glass dish, and fill the centre with whipped cream sweetened and flavoured; pile this high in the middle, and serve. If necessary, two or three drops of cochineal may be added to the jelly to heighten its colour. Sufficient for a good-sized mould. Probable cost, 2s., exclusive of the cream.
A straightforward set fruit jelly, but the gelatine quantity is the one figure that will not transfer directly to a modern kitchen.
- Gelatine strengthAn ounce and a half of Victorian gelatine will not behave like an ounce and a half of today's product, which is graded for consistent setting power; period gelatine was often weaker and less predictable. Modern powdered gelatine is packaged to set about two cups of liquid per quarter-ounce envelope, so roughly half an ounce (two envelopes, or four to five leaves of sheet gelatine) should firm the three cups or so of purée here enough to unmould. The full one and a half ounces would give something much closer to rubber.
- Do not boil the gelatineThe instruction to set it on the fire and boil it reflects older, coarser gelatine. Soak it in cold water, then warm it gently until clear, or simply stir it into the hot fruit pulp off the heat. Hard boiling gains nothing and can weaken the set.
- MeasuresThis is an imperial book: half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ cups. Half a pound of sugar is a generous cup. Loaf sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone — granulated sugar is the direct replacement.
- SievingA hair sieve was a fine horsehair mesh; any fine nylon or stainless sieve does the job. Push the pulp through with the back of a ladle and leave the raspberry seeds behind. A blender or food processor will grind the seeds in rather than remove them.
- The mould"Made open in the centre" means a ring mould, sold now as a savarin or angel-food ring. Rinse it with cold water before filling, and to turn it out dip the base in hot water for a few seconds and invert onto the dish.
- Setting timeThe original gives none. Allow four to six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight, before attempting to unmould. Victorian cooks had only a cold larder or an ice-box to set it in, which may be part of why the quantity of gelatine is so high.
- CochinealStill sold as carmine or natural red 4, made from scale insects. It is optional here — the fruit gives plenty of colour — and worth avoiding if anyone at the table avoids insect-derived ingredients.
- YieldA "good-sized mould" of this quantity serves six to eight. The whipped cream is not optional in practice: the jelly is sharp, and the centre looks bare without it.
Moulded fruit jellies were a fixture of the late-Victorian dinner table, and books like Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery (undated, but usually placed around the turn of the century or later) treat them as basic technique rather than showpieces. For most of the century a clear jelly meant hours of boiling calves' feet and clarifying the result with egg white; commercially refined gelatine — first in sheet form, with powdered kinds spreading later — put the same dish within reach of a household cook with one saucepan. Raspberries and red currants are a traditional English pairing for good reason — the currants bring acidity and abundant pectin to the raspberries' perfume, and both ripen together in a July garden, which is also why the recipe assumes you have a pound of each to hand. The ring mould filled with whipped cream is a scaled-down descendant of the elaborate architectural jellies of the earlier nineteenth century, when a table's centrepiece was expected to be built rather than merely served.