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Jellied Prunes
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) granulated gelatin 1/2 cup cold water 1/2 cup boiling water 3/4 cup sugar 2 tablespoons lemon-juice 1/2 pound prunes 2 cups water Cream Wash the prunes, soak overnight in the water and cook until tender in the same water. Drain, reserving the liquid. Remove the stones and cut the prunes in quarters. Mix prune-juice and pulp and add boiling water, if necessary, to make two cups. Chill and add lemon-juice. Follow directions on package for making jelly. This may be served with whipped or plain cream.
A molded prune jelly of the kind meant to be turned out whole and sliced at the table. The ingredient list carries most of the method, since the original defers to the directions printed on the gelatin box.
- The assembly, in orderSoften the gelatin in the 1/2 cup cold water, dissolve it in the 1/2 cup boiling water, stir in the sugar until no grit remains, then add the chilled prune liquid, lemon-juice and cut fruit. Rinse the mold in cold water before filling and the jelly will release cleanly.
- Gelatin quantity is inconsistentThe text equates 1 ounce with 2 tablespoons, but modern granulated gelatin weighs about 1/4 ounce to 2 1/4 teaspoons, so an ounce would be nearer 3 tablespoons. Go by volume: 2 tablespoons (roughly 2 2/3 standard envelopes) sets the three cups of liquid here firmly enough to unmold and slice.
- Total liquidHalf a cup cold, half a cup boiling and two cups of prune juice and pulp come to three cups. Note that the recipe's two cups already includes the fruit, so a 1-quart mold will not be quite full.
- Prunes have changedToday's pitted, semi-dried prunes are far moister than the hard dried fruit of the 1920s. An overnight soak is unnecessary; cover with the 2 cups water, simmer 15 to 20 minutes, and top up with boiling water to make the two cups of liquid called for.
- Keep the fruit suspendedChill the mixture until it is the consistency of unbeaten egg white before folding in the quartered prunes, or the fruit will sink and settle in a dense layer at the bottom.
- Setting timeFour hours in the refrigerator for a small mold, overnight for a quart. Dip the mold briefly in warm water to turn it out.
- Yield and the creamServes about six. The "cream" at the end of the list is unquantified; a cup, whipped with a little sugar or poured over plain, would be ample.
Jellied fruit desserts multiplied in American cookbooks after granulated gelatin came to grocers in small measured packages, which turned an all-day job of boiling calves' feet into an ingredient a cook could keep in the cupboard. The instruction to "follow directions on package" is a mark of that shift: the manufacturer, not the cookbook, now owned the technique. Prunes were the practical choice for such a dessert in the 1920s, being cheap, shelf-stable and heavily promoted by California growers, and their cooking water carries enough color, body and flavor to make a handsome molded jelly on its own. The Delineator, a Butterick fashion magazine with a substantial domestic department, collected recipes of exactly this order: inexpensive, presentable, and built around a packaged product.