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Rum Jelly
Boil a pound of sugar to a clear syrup. Mix with this two ounces of clarified isinglass or gelatine, and add the juice of a lemon and a wine-glassful of fine old Jamaica rum. Pour the jelly into a damp mould, set it in ice or in a cool place till it is stiff, then turn it out, and serve.
A Victorian moulded jelly of the simplest kind: sugar syrup, gelatine, lemon and rum. The proportions need interpretation, because the recipe never states how much water goes into the syrup.
- The missing liquidThe total volume is genuinely ambiguous — only the sugar, gelatine, lemon and rum are given. A pound of sugar boiled "to a clear syrup" with something like a pint and a half of water gives a jelly of roughly the right sweetness and a size suited to a quart mould.
- Isinglass or gelatine are not interchangeable by weightIsinglass, made from sturgeon swim bladders, sets more weakly and less predictably than modern powdered gelatine, and quantities of this order are not unusual in period receipts. Two ounces of today's gelatine (eight quarter-ounce envelopes) in a quart of liquid would set to rubber; one ounce, about four envelopes, gives a firm jelly that still turns out of a mould, and half that gives a jelly you would eat with a spoon.
- "Clarified isinglass"Nineteenth-century isinglass and sheet gelatine were soaked, dissolved and often strained through flannel with egg white to remove cloudiness and fishy sediment. Modern powdered or leaf gelatine needs only blooming in cold water first, then stirring into the hot syrup off the heat.
- A wine-glassfulIn Cassell's period this means roughly 2 fl oz, not the 6 oz a modern wine glass holds. Add it, and the lemon juice, after the syrup has come off the boil so the alcohol and the citrus aroma are not driven off.
- Boiling the syrup"A clear syrup" means dissolved and simmered until it runs bright — not caramel. Take it no further or the jelly will taste of toffee and set stiff.
- The damp mouldRinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet is what lets the jelly release cleanly; do not oil or grease it. To turn out, dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position.
- Setting"Set it in ice or in a cool place" is a pre-refrigeration instruction. Four to six hours in the refrigerator will do it; overnight is safer for a tall or fluted mould.
- YieldAbout a quart, serving six to eight in small portions. It is sweet and strongly spirituous.
Moulded wine and spirit jellies were a fixture of nineteenth-century dessert tables, prized for clarity as much as flavour — a jelly you could see the pattern of the mould through was proof of a careful cook and a well-clarified setting agent. Isinglass, the dried swim bladder of sturgeon, was one of the standard gelling materials for such jellies, alongside calf's-foot jelly, before commercial powdered gelatine became cheap and reliable in the later part of the century, and the "isinglass or gelatine" of this receipt catches the moment of transition. The Jamaica rum is a reminder of how thoroughly British kitchens were supplied by the Caribbean trade: the same colonial route brought both the pound of sugar and the wine-glass of spirit, and "fine old Jamaica" generally indicated a dark, aged, heavily aromatic rum rather than a light one. Similar jellies appear flavoured with sherry, Madeira, maraschino and brandy, all built on the same syrup-and-isinglass base.