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Riband Jelly of Two Colours
Take as much clear, bright calf's foot or isinglass jelly, properly flavoured, as is required for use. Be careful to use very pale jelly, or the colours will not contrast prettily. Divide it into two portions, and colour one portion with two or three drops of cochineal. Pour a layer of red an inch deep into a damped mould. Let this get perfectly firm, then add a layer the same depth of pale jelly, and repeat until the mould is full. The mould should, if possible, be placed upon ice as each layer is added. Unless this can be done the jelly will be a long time getting stiff.
A striped moulded jelly built one layer at a time. The technique is entirely about temperature control: nothing here is difficult, but every layer must be handled at the right heat or the stripes blur.
- The hinge: pour cool, not warmEach new layer must be liquid but barely above room temperature before it goes onto the set layer beneath. Warm jelly melts a channel into the layer below and the band edges turn cloudy and ragged. Keep the reserved portions somewhere just warm enough to stay fluid, and cool a ladleful before pouring.
- Set, but tackyAdd the next layer when the surface beneath is firm to a fingertip but still slightly sticky. Fully chilled, glassy layers tend to separate when the jelly is turned out, and the whole thing shears along a stripe.
- Calf's foot and isinglassCalf's foot jelly was stock boiled from split calves' feet, clarified with egg white; isinglass is dried fish swim bladder, chiefly sturgeon. Both are now uncommon in domestic kitchens, though calves' feet can be ordered from a butcher and isinglass is still sold. Use a clear gelatine jelly, around 1 to 1 1/4 oz (25-35 g) powdered gelatine per quart of liquid for something that will stand unmoulded.
- "Very pale jelly"The instruction matters. A wine or lemon jelly with any amber tone will turn the uncoloured band muddy against the pink. Filtered apple juice, or a clear lemon jelly made with strained juice and no zest, gives the contrast the recipe wants.
- CochinealThe period colouring was carmine extracted from cochineal insects, sold as a liquid by the ounce. Modern cochineal or carmine extract is still available and behaves much the same way; two or three drops is genuinely enough.
- Ice, and what to use insteadA refrigerator does the work the ice pail once did. Allow a good half-hour or more per inch-deep layer, longer in a warm kitchen; the freezer will speed it but risks ice crystals at the mould wall, which show as a frosted, opaque band.
- Damping the mouldRinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet, rather than oiling it, keeps the surface bright. To unmould, dip to the rim in hot water for five seconds, no longer, then invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into place.
- Scale and timingA 1 1/2 pint (about 850 ml) mould filled in inch-deep bands will take several layers, the number depending on how wide the mould is, and with chilling between each, the better part of a working day. Serves six to eight. Build it the day before and leave it in the mould overnight.
Riband or ribbon jellies belong to the Victorian dinner table's love of moulded, architectural sweets, where a dish was judged first on how it looked when carried in. The gelatine came from calves' feet boiled down at home or from isinglass, a sturgeon product that reached British kitchens through the Russian trade and was prized because it set clear; both were laborious enough that a large clear jelly signalled a well-staffed kitchen. Commercial sheet and powdered gelatines, spreading through the second half of the nineteenth century, made such things possible for households without a cook to spare, and books like Cassell's, aimed squarely at the middle-class mistress, printed them accordingly. The cochineal is a reminder that the cookery books of the period listed a small range of colourings -- carmine, saffron, spinach green, caramel -- to be used with a dropper for exactly this sort of display work.