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Russian Jelly
Take the remains of jelly of any kind, put it in a bowl, and set it in a pan of hot water until dissolved. Put the basin upon ice, and whisk the jelly briskly till it begins to stiffen and form a creamy froth, then pour it at once into a mould set in ice. When it is firm turn it out. When convenient, two or three kinds of jelly appropriately flavoured can be mixed together.
This is a thrift recipe: leftover set jelly is melted, whipped over ice until it holds air, and moulded again as a pale, foamy sponge. The whole thing hinges on catching the jelly at the right moment of chilling.
- "Jelly" here means gelatine dessertNot jam or preserve. Cassell's means a sweetened, flavoured gelatine jelly of the kind moulded for the table — wine jelly, lemon jelly, orange jelly. Leftover fruit jam will not behave this way.
- Basin and bowlThe "bowl" and the "basin" are the same vessel: a pudding basin, i.e. a deep heatproof mixing bowl. Set it over a pan of hot water rather than in it if the bowl is wide, and keep the water below a simmer so the gelatine is not overheated.
- The hinge: whisk in the setting windowThe jelly must be cold enough to be thickening but still fluid. Too warm and it will not hold air; too cold and it seizes into lumps that cannot be smoothed out. Whisk over ice water, watching for the point where the mixture turns opaque and clings to the whisk, then mould it immediately.
- Volume and colourExpect the jelly to increase considerably in bulk, perhaps as much as doubling, so allow a mould larger than the volume of melted jelly. Whipping lightens the colour: a deep red jelly comes out pink, a lemon jelly nearly white.
- Mixing two or three kindsThe recipe allows it. Flavours that quarrel will still be edible, but colours combined at the froth stage can turn muddy; whipping each separately and layering them in the mould, letting each layer firm before adding the next, keeps them distinct.
- Setting time and turning outAllow two to three hours in the refrigerator, longer for a large mould. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a wetted plate; a whipped jelly is more fragile than a clear one and will tear if forced.
- Modern gelatine strengthPowdered and leaf gelatine sold today set more reliably than Victorian sheet gelatine or homemade calf's-foot stock, so a re-melted jelly should reset without help. If the original jelly was only just firm, it will whip to a froth that slumps — stiffen it with a little extra bloomed gelatine before chilling.
- Agar will not do thisVegetarian setting agents based on agar or carrageenan set brittle rather than elastic and will not hold air when whisked in the way gelatine does. The method as written depends on gelatine.
- YieldA pint of leftover jelly whips up to fill a mould of about a quart and serves four to six as a light sweet, best eaten the day it is made.
Whipped or "whisked" jellies were a standing feature of late nineteenth-century dessert cookery, and this one is squarely an economy dish: Cassell's assumes a household that regularly turned out moulded jellies for dinner and had awkward remains left over the next day. The "Russian" label is of the loose fashionable sort common in Victorian menus \la russe and dishes styled \la russe carried an air of elegance, the name attached to a great many preparations with no documented Russian origin, and it is generally taken to signal a moulded, showy presentation rather than a specific national recipe. What is genuinely of its period is the reliance on ice, which the recipe calls for repeatedly in the course of its four sentences.