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Plain Lemon Jelly
One package of Larkin Gelatine Three pints of freshly boiled water One cup of cold water One cup of sugar Juice of three lemons or one-half cup of lemon-juice Moisten Gelatine in cold water for two minutes, pour on boiling water, add sugar and lemon-juice and strain through cheese-cloth or soft linen into molds.
A straightforward gelatine dessert whose only real difficulty is the vanished proprietary package. Everything else scales cleanly to modern granulated gelatine.
- "One package of Larkin Gelatine"A period "package" of household gelatine held roughly an ounce, about the equivalent of four modern 1/4-ounce envelopes, though the exact Larkin packaging is not recorded here. One modern envelope sets about 2 cups of liquid, so an ounce for the roughly 7 1/2 cups of liquid in this recipe gives a firm jelly that will stand up out of a mold. If you want a softer, spoonable jelly, use three envelopes.
- Soften longer than two minutesModern gelatine wants 5 to 10 minutes in the cold water until every grain has swollen and gone translucent; undissolved grains are the usual cause of gritty or weeping jelly.
- Hot water, not boiling in the potPour freshly boiled water over the softened gelatine and stir until clear. Do not return the mixture to the heat and let it boil — prolonged boiling weakens the set.
- Lemons then and nowThree lemons of the period yielded about the half cup the recipe names as an alternative. Supermarket lemons vary widely, so measure the half cup rather than counting fruit.
- Sugar to tasteOne cup of sugar in about 7 1/2 cups of liquid is markedly tart by current expectations. Taste the warm mixture before molding and add sugar if you want something closer to a modern dessert jelly; dissolve any addition while the liquid is still hot.
- Why strainCheesecloth or soft linen catches pulp, seeds and any undissolved gelatine, and it is what gives the finished jelly its clarity. A fine sieve lined with a double layer of damp cheesecloth does the same job.
- SettingChill at least 4 hours, and overnight for large molds. The original assumed an icebox or a cold cellar; a refrigerator is faster and more reliable.
- Yield and servingAbout 7 1/2 cups, enough for 8 to 10 servings or one large mold. Rinse molds with cold water before filling, and dip briefly in warm water to turn out. Whipped cream or a few berries would be a plausible period accompaniment.
Good Things to Eat was published by the Larkin Company of Buffalo, the mail-order soap and grocery house that sold household goods direct to customers and gave away premiums " c cookbooks among them " to keep club orders coming. That is why the first ingredient is a brand: the book existed partly to move Larkin gelatine, Larkin extracts and Larkin baking powder, and dozens of its recipes name them. Plain lemon jelly itself belongs to a much older tradition of clear molded jellies, which could mean hours of simmering calves' feet and clarifying the result with egg white and repeated straining through a flannel bag, though prepared sheet, shred and granulated gelatines were sold in Britain and America well before 1890. Packaged granulated gelatine reduced that labor to a few minutes of soaking, and it is tempting to read the abundance of jelly and "shape" recipes in Edwardian household books as a consequence. The instruction to strain through cheesecloth can be seen as an echo of the old jelly bag.