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Jellied Walnuts
1/4 box gelatine or 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 1/4 cup cold water 1/3 cup boiling water 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup Sherry wine 1/2 cup orange juice 3 tablespoons lemon juice Make same as other jellies and cover bottom of shallow pan with one-half the mixture. When nearly firm, place over it, one inch apart, halves of English walnuts. Cover with remaining mixture. Chill, and cut in squares. Serve with whipped cream sweetened and flavored.
A wine jelly set in a shallow pan with walnut halves suspended in it, cut into squares. The whole trick is the two-stage set, so the nuts stay put mid-jelly rather than floating or sinking.
- Gelatine quantityThe recipe gives its own equivalence: 1/4 box equals 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine, roughly one modern envelope (1/4 oz). That will set the recipe's liquid (just under 2 cups), though a square firm enough to cut is at the upper limit of what one envelope will do.
- "Make same as other jellies"Soften the gelatine in the cold water five minutes, dissolve it completely in the boiling water, then add sugar, wine and the citrus juices. Strain before pouring; pulp and pith cloud the jelly and this one is meant to be clear enough to show the nuts.
- Timing the second layerPour half into the pan and chill only until the surface is tacky and will support a nut, not fully set. If the first layer goes hard, the second will not bond and the squares split along the seam when cut.
- Second layer temperatureKeep the reserved half at room temperature so it stays liquid, and let it cool to barely warm before pouring. Hot jelly will melt the set layer and the walnuts will drift.
- Pan sizeAn 8-inch square pan gives a layer about 1/2 inch deep, which is workable for squares. Anything deeper and the nuts sit too far from the cutting surface to show.
- The SherryHalf a cup of Sherry in 2 cups of liquid is assertive and does not cook off, since nothing here is boiled after the wine goes in. An amontillado or oloroso suits the walnuts better than a dry fino.
- Walnut prepOld walnut halves can be bitter and papery. Toast them lightly and cool completely before setting them in the jelly; wet or warm nuts weep oil into the surface.
- YieldAbout sixteen 2-inch squares, enough for six to eight as a light dessert. Cut with a thin knife dipped in hot water and lift the squares out with a small spatula.
Wine jellies were a common feature of American dessert chapters from the 1870s through the First World War, once packaged gelatine made setting a jelly a matter of a tablespoon rather than a day of boiling calves' feet. This one belongs to a family of "fancy jellies" in which fruit, nuts or candied peel are suspended in layers for effect, and the shallow pan and cut squares suggest a plate dessert or refreshment for company rather than a moulded centrepiece. The English walnut -- the Persian walnut of commerce, distinguished in American usage from the native black walnut -- was the widely sold nut of the period and the milder of the two. Whipped cream, sweetened and flavoured, was a common finish for jellies of this kind.