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Apricots in Jelly
1 1/4 cups dried apricots 1 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 ounce vegetable gelatin 1 cup water in which to dissolve the gelatin Wash the apricots, and let them soak overnight in three cups cold water. In the morning stew till tender in the water in which they soaked, which should require only about ten minutes. Drain off the juice and measure it. There should be two cups. Add water, if necessary, to make that amount. Put the apricots back into the juice, and add the sugar, lemon juice, and salt. After preparing the gelatin by soaking and draining, boil it in the one cup of water till it dissolves, then strain it into the apricots. Put into molds wet with cold water. When cold, unmold and serve with whipped cream.
A straightforward dried-fruit jelly whose one difficulty is the setting agent: "vegetable gelatin" is agar, which behaves nothing like the powdered gelatin in a modern pantry.
- Agar must actually boilAgar will not dissolve in warm water the way gelatin blooms — it needs a full boil for several minutes, which is why the recipe sends it into a separate cup of water. Strain it hot into the fruit and work quickly, because agar begins to set as it approaches about 100F.
- Buying the setting agent1/4 ounce is about 7 g. Agar is sold as flakes, powder or long dried strands, and the forms are not interchangeable spoon for spoon — powder is considerably more concentrated than flakes, so measure by weight rather than by spoon. The "soaking and draining" step in the original suggests strands or sheets, which are softened in cold water and squeezed out first.
- If you use ordinary gelatin insteadPowdered gelatin must be softened in cold water and then never boiled, and it sets softer and more quaveringly than agar. The result will need refrigeration and will not unmold as cleanly.
- Setting and unmoldingAn agar jelly sets firm at room temperature and does not require a refrigerator, though chilling does no harm. Wetting the molds with cold water, as directed, is what allows the jelly to slip out; a brief dip of the mold in hot water helps if it sticks.
- Stewing timeTen minutes is right only for apricots that have soaked overnight and rehydrated fully. Modern dried apricots vary a good deal in dryness — cook until a piece yields easily to a spoon, and top up the liquid so you still finish with two cups of juice.
- Sulfured or unsulfured fruitBright orange apricots are sulfur-treated and hold their color; dark unsulfured ones give a browner jelly and a fuller flavor. Either works, but the color of the finished mold depends largely on which you buy.
- SweetnessA cup of sugar to a cup and a quarter of dried fruit is generous by current taste. Halving it will still set, since agar does not depend on sugar to gel, though the texture will be a little different.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. The liquid alone comes to three cups (two of juice plus the one cup the gelatin is boiled in) before the sugar and the soaked apricots, so expect appreciably more than a quart; divide between individual molds or one large one, and serve with whipped cream as directed.