Home › CHAPTER XIII › CHAPTER XIII: Jelly
CHAPTER XIII: Jelly
ORANGE JELLY 1 tablespoonful of granulated 1/2 cup of sugar gelatine 1 cup of orange juice 1/4 cup of cold water 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice 1/2 cup of boiling water Prepare in the same manner as lemon jelly. Grapefruit jelly may be made by the same recipe.
ORANGE SECTIONS IN JELLY "Blood" oranges are very juicy and make a pretty colored jelly. Remove the sections from peeled oranges in such a manner as to leave no trace of membrane on the pieces. Set these, lengthwise, into individual moulds (some moulds are well adapted to this purpose), and gradually fill the moulds with the fruit mixture. Serve, when set and cold, turned from the moulds. The filling of the moulds may be expedited if the moulds are set in a pan of water and crushed ice. Then put in a tablespoonful of the mixture; when this hardens the sections of orange will be held in place and the moulds can be half filled and then completely filled.
PRUNE JELLY 1 tablespoonful of granulated 2 tablespoonfuls of orange gelatine juice or 1/4 cup of cold water 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice 1/4 pound of prunes, cooked 1/3 cup of sugar tender 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of Grated rind of 1 orange or sherry wine if desired lemon or Hot water to make 1 1/2 cups 1 tablespoonful of candied peel, of material cut very fine Remove the stones and cut the cooked prunes in pieces. The meats from the stones (cracked) or one-fourth a cup of sliced almonds or walnuts may be added. Soften the gelatine in the cold water, and dissolve in the hot prune juice; add the other ingredients and measure the whole. There should not be more than one cup and a half. If not that quantity hot water may be added. One tablespoonful of gelatine is supposed to be needed for each pint of liquid, but in summer time or if the mixture is heavy with fruit or prunes, the quantity of liquid must be cut down.
PRUNES STUFFED WITH CHEESE Let choice prunes soak over night in cold water; steam until tender; slit down at one side and remove the stone from each. Grate Edam or other cheese; add a little fine-chopped red pepper, or a dash of paprika, and enough mayonnaise dressing to mix the cheese to a soft and smooth consistency. Fill the open spaces in the centers of the prunes with the cheese mixture. Serve with lettuce salad, over which French dressing has been poured, and toasted crackers. Philadelphia or Neufchatel cheese may be used; also, French dressing in the place of the mayonnaise.
STRAWBERRY SANDWICHES Bake sponge cake of any variety in a sheet; cut the cake into pieces of a size suitable for individual service and split each piece. Have ready some hulled-and-washed berries, mixed with sugar. Put the prepared berries between and above the pieces of cake.
A group of gelatine desserts and cold-plate dishes from a book scaled for a two-person household. One instruction in the prune jelly should be ignored outright; the rest translates cleanly.
- The cracked prune stonesThe prune jelly directs you to crack the stones and add the kernels. Plum kernels, like bitter almond and apricot kernels, contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is chewed or soaked in a moist mixture. The amount in a quarter pound of prunes is small but the practice has no place in a modern kitchen, and there is no reliable way to judge the dose at home. The recipe itself offers sliced almonds or walnuts as the alternative, and that is what any current version would call for.
- Gelatine strengthA tablespoonful of granulated gelatine is a little more than a modern envelope (an envelope is about 2 1/4 teaspoons, 7 g), and the book's rule of one tablespoonful per pint of liquid is close to the modern ratio. Note the author's own caveat: a mixture loaded with fruit needs the liquid cut back, not the gelatine increased.
- Softening and dissolvingSprinkle the gelatine over the cold water and leave it undisturbed until it swells, then dissolve in the boiling water or hot prune juice before any acid juice goes in. Orange, lemon and grapefruit juice all weaken a set if the gelatine has not fully dissolved first.
- Fresh pineapple, kiwi and papayaNot in these recipes, but worth knowing if you substitute: their raw enzymes digest gelatine and the jelly will never set. Citrus is fine.
- Blood orangesStill sold in late winter and early spring, and still the best choice here for colour. Supreming the sections with a small sharp knife, cutting between the membranes over a bowl, gives the clean pieces the recipe asks for and catches the juice.
- Setting in layersThe ice-water bath and the tablespoonful-at-a-time method are the hinge of the moulded version. Fill in one go and the orange sections float to the top and rearrange themselves. A refrigerator does the same work more slowly; allow twenty minutes or so per layer.
- Prunes todayMost supermarket prunes are sold moist-pack and pitted, and need only brief simmering rather than an overnight soak. For the stuffed prunes you want whole ones with the stone in, which are harder to find.
- Neufchatel and "Philadelphia""Philadelphia" here means cream cheese; it was a trade name by this date but was also used loosely for the style. American Neufchatel is the lower-fat cream cheese still sold under that name; it is not the French bloomy-rind cheese of the same spelling.
- YieldThe book is scaled for a two-person household, and these quantities (about a pint of liquid) are sized accordingly. Unmould by dipping the mould a few seconds in warm water and inverting onto a chilled plate.
Cooking for Two (1909) came from Janet McKenzie Hill, founding editor of the Boston Cooking School Magazine, and it belongs to the moment when powdered gelatine stopped being a luxury. Through most of the nineteenth century a clear jelly meant calf's foot or isinglass, boiled down and clarified over hours; by the 1890s granulated gelatine was sold ready-packaged, and a housekeeper could turn out a moulded dessert in an afternoon. That is why chapters like this one exist at all, and why the recipes are written as a formula with variations, orange, grapefruit, prune, rather than as separate dishes. The prune jelly's suggestion of cracking the stones for their kernels reflects an older thrift, and an older taste for a bitter almond flavour, that the twentieth century steadily abandoned. The stuffed prunes and the strawberry sandwiches at the end are luncheon food, the kind of light cold plate a small household served when there was no cook and no roast.