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Compote of Pineapple
Dissolve one-half box of gelatine in one-half cup of water. Make a syrup of one cup of water and one-half cup of sugar in which, while hot, mix thoroughly one (whole) shredded pineapple. When at boiling point remove and when slightly cooler add the gelatine, pour into mould, cool, then place on ice.
A plain gelatine mould from the era when boxed granulated gelatine was still a novelty in home kitchens. Most of what needs saying concerns the gelatine itself and the fact that pineapple actively fights it.
- The hinge: the pineapple must be cookedFresh pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that digests gelatine and leaves the mould a soupy mess. Bringing the fruit to a full boil in the syrup destroys it, so treat "when at boiling point remove" as a genuine boil rather than a quick warming, and do not add any raw fruit afterwards for looks.
- Half a box of gelatinePeriod boxes of granulated gelatine were commonly about one ounce (Knox's four quarter-ounce envelopes), so half a box is roughly 14 g, or two modern quarter-ounce envelopes; box sizes did vary. Against the cup and a half of water here plus the fruit's juice, that gives a firm, sliceable set; one envelope gives a softer spoonable compote.
- Soften, then dissolveGranulated gelatine should be sprinkled over the half cup of cold water and left to swell for five minutes before it meets anything hot. Stirring dry granules straight into water gives lumps that never fully disperse.
- Do not boil the gelatineThe instruction to wait until the syrup is "slightly cooler" matters. Prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's setting strength; around 140F/60C is plenty to melt the bloomed granules.
- "Shredded" pineappleThis means the flesh pulled or scraped into coarse fibrous strands rather than grated pulp or neat rings; period recipes call for shredding often enough, though how universal the practice was is hard to say. Trim the core out first, as it stays woody however long it cooks.
- Canned pineappleCanned fruit is heat-processed and its bromelain is already dead, so it sets reliably. Reduce the sugar, since it is packed in syrup, and count its juice as part of the liquid.
- Chilling"Place on ice" is a refrigerator today. A one-quart mould needs four to six hours, or overnight; unmould by dipping the outside in warm water for a few seconds.
- YieldOne average pineapple and the syrup make a generous quart or so, serving about six.
Compotes were originally fruit stewed in syrup and served loose; by the late nineteenth century the word was also being used, in American household books, for moulded gelatine desserts built on the same sugared fruit, though compote continued to mean stewed fruit alongside such uses. What made recipes like this possible was commercial granulated gelatine, sold by the box from around 1890 onward, which replaced the long labour of boiling calves' feet or shaving isinglass and put clear jellied desserts within reach of an ordinary kitchen. Pineapple arrived on the same wave: improved steamship routes from the Caribbean, and later Hawaii, turned it from a hothouse luxury and table centrepiece into something a cook could buy whole and cut up. That the recipe boils the fruit before it meets the gelatine may be practical wisdom arrived at by failure rather than chemistry; bromelain was not isolated and named until the late nineteenth century, but cooks knew perfectly well that raw pineapple jelly would not stand.<br><br>Fruit Recipes and its contemporaries are full of these moulds, and they mark a moment when dessert was judged as much by how cleanly it turned out of its tin shape as by how it tasted.