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Winter Jelly, Mosaic
Boil half a pint of cream. When it boils, infuse the peel either of an orange or of a lemon, according as you wish to decorate the jelly with either. When the cream has imbibed the flavour of the fruit, put in a little sugar. Break the yolks of four eggs, beat them with the cream, lay it on the fire to thicken, and then put in some isinglass that has previously been melted. Strain the whole through a hair sieve, and put it in a basin, well covered, on some ice, in order that it may get quite firm. Now take the mould which you intend to use, brush it lightly with oil all over the inside, and then cut the white cream jelly with a knife in the first place, and next with small tin cutters. Decorate the mould without putting it on ice, for the damp would prevent the decoration from sticking on. Decorate the bottom first, next the sides; then only put the mould over ice. Now pour in a little orange jelly lightly not to injure the decoration, and let it get thick. When the orange jelly is frozen, thrust the mould deeper into the ice; then put a little more jelly to the height of the lower decoration on the sides; let the preparation be made firm again. Mind the jelly is never to come higher than the flowerets till the bottom has been first made firm, then gradually ascend to the top. Cover and surround the mould with ice. When you wish to serve up, dip a towel into some hot water, and rub the mould all round. Ascertain that none of the jelly sticks to the sides before you meddle with the bottom of the mould; then rub the bottom with the hot towel, and turn the jelly neatly into a dish. Were it not for all these precautions, the two colours would melt and mix with one another. This jelly looks beautiful when well made. N.B.--It is to be observed that this jelly can only be made in winter, hence its name; for during the summer season it would melt, except made hard, then it would not be good; however, you may work it in a very cold place.
This is two preparations assembled as one: a firm cooked cream custard set with gelatine, cut into shapes, and a clear orange jelly poured around them in stages. The recipe assumes you already have the orange jelly made and liquid, and that your only refrigeration is a tub of ice.
- The hinge: build in thin layersEach addition of orange jelly must be barely deep enough to reach the top of the cut shapes already laid, and must be fully set before the next goes in. Pour a deep layer and the warm jelly floats the decoration off the mould and blurs the two colours, which is the failure the original is warning about throughout.
- Isinglass means gelatineIsinglass is sturgeon swim-bladder collagen, sold in shreds of very variable strength; there is no exact modern equivalent. Powdered or leaf gelatine does the same work — for a cream jelly firm enough to cut with tin cutters, count on about 7 g (one standard sachet) to the half pint of cream, bloomed and dissolved before it goes in.
- Half a pintA British half pint is 10 fl oz, about 284 ml. If you are working from an American text, a half pint is 8 fl oz, and the gelatine should come down accordingly.
- Cooking the custard"Lay it on the fire to thicken" means a gentle heat and constant stirring until it thickens, in the region of 175–180°F; much beyond that and the yolks are liable to curdle. Take it off while it still coats the spoon, then stir in the dissolved gelatine off the heat.
- The orange jelly is not given hereYou need a clear, well-strained orange jelly set with the same gelatine, made slightly firmer than a jelly you would eat from a glass, and held just liquid and barely warm — not hot — while you pour it. Quantity is unspecified; for a 1-quart mould allow about a pint and a half of clear jelly.
- Ice, or the refrigeratorThe ice tub is only a means of chilling in stages. A refrigerator does the same job: set the decorated mould on a level shelf, add a shallow layer of jelly, and give it 20–30 minutes before the next. Do not use the freezer — the original's "frozen" means set firm, not iced, and real freezing ruins both the texture and the clarity.
- Oiling and turning outBrush the mould with a flavourless oil in the thinnest film; a pool in the base will show as a cloudy patch. To unmould, a cloth wrung out in hot water pressed to the sides for a few seconds is still the best method, and the instruction to free the sides before touching the base is sound.
- YieldA quart mould serves six to eight. It needs several hours of setting time, laid in stages, and should be kept cold until the moment it goes to table.
- Why "winter"The note is not superstition: without mechanical refrigeration a gelatine jelly stood no chance in a warm room, and the alternative — loading it with isinglass until it survived — gave the rubbery result the author dismisses. With a refrigerator the seasonal restriction no longer applies.
Moulded jellies of this kind belong to the high decorative cookery that professional chefs brought out of early nineteenth-century France, where set creams and clear jellies were treated as building materials for architectural centrepieces; the "mosaic" of the title is the inlay of pale cream shapes read through the transparent orange. Isinglass, the setting agent named here, was the standard gelling material of the period, imported in shreds from Russia and prized because it gave a clearer set than the calf's-foot stock used in older English kitchens; commercially refined sheet and powdered gelatine largely displaced it in domestic cookery over the later nineteenth century. The parting note that the dish can only be made in winter is the plainest possible reminder of what a Victorian kitchen was working with: an ice-house or an ice merchant, a cold larder, and the seasons.