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Cider Punch
Beat up a glass of apple jelly to a froth, add a cupful of boiling water and a quart of cider. Flavor with nutmeg. Fill glasses with shaved ice and pour over this the punch.
A three-ingredient punch that depends entirely on getting the jelly dissolved before the cider goes in. Everything else is assembly.
- The hinge: dissolve the jelly firstWhisk the jelly with the boiling water until it is smooth and slightly frothy before the cider goes in. Cold cider added to jelly that has not fully dissolved can leave gelatinous threads in the punch.
- "A glass of apple jelly"Probably the small tumbler-style glass jelly was stored in, on the order of 6 to 8 fl oz. The quantity is genuinely loose; start with half a cup of jelly for a quart of cider and add more if you want it sweeter.
- Which ciderIn American cookbooks of this sort cider usually means fresh sweet apple cider rather than the alcoholic drink sold under that name in Britain, though the fermented kind was often called simply cider too. Unfiltered cloudy cider gives the best body; hard cider works but the punch becomes drier.
- Quantities in modern termsA quart is 4 cups, a cupful 8 fl oz. The finished punch comes to about a quart and a half and fills six to eight glasses once the ice takes up room.
- NutmegGrate it fresh over the mixed punch rather than stirring in pre-ground nutmeg, which sinks and tastes dusty. A few rasps per quart is enough; nutmeg overwhelms apple quickly.
- Chill before serving, not just over iceRefrigerate the punch for at least two hours. Shaved ice melts fast against a room-temperature liquid and you end up with apple water.
- Shaved iceA blender or a food processor will shave cubes adequately; pulse briefly and use it at once. Strain the punch through a fine sieve as you pour if any jelly has failed to dissolve.
Cider punch belongs to the long American tradition of the household punch bowl, where the sweetening agent was whatever the pantry held — sugar syrup, molasses, or, as here, a jar of last autumn's apple jelly, which supplies sugar, pectin and a second dose of apple flavor at the same time. The trick of beating jelly to a froth with hot water was as much about texture as sweetness: the pectin gives the punch a faint body that plain syrup does not.