Liqueur Jelly
INGREDIENTS for quart mould. lb. of lump sugar, 1½ oz. of isinglass, or gelatine, 1½ pint of water, the juice of 2 lemons, 1/4 pint of liqueur. AVERAGE COST, 2s.
Put the sugar, with 1 pint of the water, into a stewpan and boil them gently by the side of the fire until there is no scum remaining, which must be carefully removed as fast as it rises. Boil the isinglass with the other 1/2 pint of water and skim it carefully in the same manner. Strain the lemon-juice and add it, with the clarified isinglass, to the syrup; put in the liqueur and bring the whole to the boiling point.
Let the saucepan remain covered by the side of the fire for a few minutes; then pour and set the mould in ice until required for the jelly through a bag, put it into a mould the table. Dip the mould in hot water, wipe the outside, loosen the jelly by passing a knife round the edges and turn it out carefully on a dish. Noyeau, Maraschino, Curaçoa, brandy, or any kind of liqueur answers for this jelly; and, when made with isinglass, liqueur jellies are usually prepared as directed above.
TIME.-10 minutes to boil the sugar and water .
SEASONABLE at any time.
A Victorian moulded jelly, stiff enough to stand on a dish and be sliced. Two lines of the original have been scrambled by the scanner: the instruction reads, in effect, strain the jelly through a bag, pour it into a mould, and set the mould in ice until wanted.
- The hinge: do not really boil itThe hinge: do not overboil — prolonged boiling degrades gelatine and weakens the set, and it drives off some of the alcohol that carries the flavour. Note that the original does direct that the whole be brought to the boiling point; 'by the side of the fire' means gentle, indirect heat rather than a rolling boil, so bring it just to steaming and take it off.
- Isinglass and gelatine are not interchangeable by weight1½ oz (about 42 g) of isinglass gave the firm, carveable jelly Victorian cooks wanted from a quart mould. Modern powdered gelatine is stronger; for roughly a litre of liquid intended to be turned out, 20-25 g is the usual figure, and sheet gelatine is measured by bloom strength on the packet.
- Alcohol resists settingAlcohol can resist setting — a quarter pint of liqueur is roughly a seventh of the liquid here, and alcohol interferes with gel formation at high concentrations. If the mixture is slow to firm, that may be the reason rather than underweighed gelatine.
- Units and vesselsA quart mould is 40 imperial fl oz, about 1.1 litres. A pint is 20 fl oz, a quarter pint 5 fl oz, roughly 150 ml. A stewpan is any wide, heavy saucepan.
- Lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a cone; ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing. The careful skimming was to remove impurities that modern refined sugar does not carry, so expect little or no scum.
- The jelly bagStraining through a scalded flannel bag or several layers of muslin is what gives the finished jelly its clarity. Let it drip; squeezing the bag pushes cloudiness through.
- Setting and unmouldingAn ice bath was the original refrigeration; four to six hours in the refrigerator does the same. Dip the mould in hot water only for a few seconds — longer and the surface melts to slush.
- Liqueurs namedNoyeau (noyau) is an almond-kernel liqueur, curaçoa is curaçao, and maraschino here means the dry cherry-stone liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries.
- YieldA quart mould serves eight to ten as a dessert course, turned out and cut in wedges.
Isinglass, the ingredient this recipe treats as the standard, is a pure collagen prepared from the swim bladders of fish — sturgeon was the prized source, and it was also long used to clarify beer and wine. It had to be soaked, boiled and clarified by the cook, which is why the method here devotes as much attention to skimming as to flavour; commercially sheeted and powdered gelatine, which Mrs Beeton's text acknowledges as an alternative, gradually made that labour unnecessary over the second half of the nineteenth century. Moulded jellies mattered to Victorian dining because they were show pieces: clear, glittering, architectural, and served at table in the shape of the copper mould. A liqueur jelly was the adult end of that tradition, flavoured not with fruit but with a costly cordial, and the recipe's note that it is "seasonable at any time" is part of its appeal — it needed no fruit in season, only a bottle from the cellar.