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Syrup Clarified for Jellies
Put two pounds of refined sugar into a well-tinned saucepan with a quart of water. When the sugar is dissolved, stir in briskly the white of an egg beaten up with a spoonful of cold water. Beat the syrup thoroughly, let it boil, and remove the scum as it rises. Strain it through a sieve, and it will be fit for use.
A light clarifying syrup meant as the base for gelatine or isinglass jellies. The whole method hinges on one point: the egg white must go in while the syrup is cold or barely warm, before any boiling.
- Add the egg white coldAdd the egg white before boiling -- The recipe has the white going in as soon as the sugar is dissolved, ahead of any boiling; it does not specify whether the water is heated to dissolve the sugar. Beaten white stirred into already-hot syrup tends to set into shreds rather than clarify, so if you do warm the water, let it cool before whisking in the white, then bring it up to a boil so the coagulating albumen rises as a raft and carries the sediment with it.
- Do not stir once it heats"Beat the syrup thoroughly" applies to the cold mixing stage. After the pan is on the heat, leave it alone apart from lifting off scum, or you will break the raft back into the syrup.
- Well-tinned saucepanThe lining is the point: tin over the base metal (usually copper, sometimes iron), because bare copper discolours sugar work. Any heavy stainless or enamelled pan does the job now.
- Refined sugarIn the period this meant loaf or lump sugar, which could still carry traces of gum, ash and colour that a raft could pull out. Modern granulated white sugar is essentially pure sucrose, so clarifying is largely redundant unless you want the extra polish for a clear jelly.
- Proportions and yieldTwo pounds of sugar to a quart of water is a moderately light syrup, roughly 45 percent sugar by weight. You will finish with a little under a quart after boiling and skimming.
- StrainingA sieve alone leaves fine albumen haze. Line it with a double layer of damp muslin or a coffee filter and let it drip rather than pressing it through.
- KeepingA syrup this dilute is not shelf-stable. Refrigerate in a clean jar and use within a week or two, or freeze it.
Clarifying with egg white is the confectioner's version of the same trick that clears a consommé: albumen coagulates as it heats, rises in a coherent raft, and traps suspended solids on the way up. It mattered in the nineteenth century because sugar arrived as loaf sugar of variable quality, and even the best of it could carry enough colour and mineral residue to cloud a jelly, which was judged above all on transparency. Clear syrup was a preliminary step, assumed by the calf's-foot, isinglass and gelatine jellies that were the centrepiece of a Victorian dessert table. As refining improved through the later part of the century, the step gradually dropped out of domestic practice and survives mainly in professional confectionery and sugar work.