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Lemon Jelly
1 cup sugar 1 1/2 cups water 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 1/4 cup lemon juice Boil sugar and water two or three minutes; add gelatine which has been soaked in two tablespoons cold water, stirring constantly; add lemon juice. Pour into mold which has been dipped in cold water. Chill and serve. Other fruit juices may be substituted for lemon, and either whole or cut fruit may be molded in the jelly.
Royal Baking Powder is Absolutely Pure Steamed Fig Pudding 1/4 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1 cup milk 2 1/2 cups flour 4 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or other flavoring 1 cup chopped figs Cream shortening; add sugar slowly and well-beaten egg; add milk; mix well; add flour, baking powder and salt, which have been sifted together; add flavoring and figs. Pour into greased pudding mold and steam for two hours. Serve with foamy sauce (below).
A plain molded gelatin dessert from a Royal Baking Powder promotional book. The transcription runs on into a second, unrelated recipe for steamed fig pudding, which is noted at the end.
- Do not boil the gelatineDo not boil the gelatine long -- the syrup is boiled first, then the softened gelatine is stirred in until dissolved. Prolonged boiling can weaken gelatine's setting strength, so stir only until it has gone clear rather than letting the mixture boil on.
- Granulated gelatine measureA tablespoon is about 3 teaspoons, a little more than one modern 1/4-oz envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons). One envelope is about the standard dose for this quantity of liquid; the full tablespoon gives a firmer mold.
- SofteningTwo tablespoons cold water for a tablespoon of gelatine is on the stingy side. Let it stand five minutes until it is uniformly swollen and translucent with no dry grains, or you will get gritty threads in the finished jelly.
- Acid and setA quarter cup of lemon juice is a lot of acid for this volume of liquid, and acid weakens gelatin. Add it last, as directed, and expect a slightly softer set than a plain water jelly.
- Fruit substitutionsThe note about other fruit juices holds, with one exception: fresh pineapple, kiwi, papaya, mango and figs contain proteases that dissolve gelatin and the jelly will never set. Canned or briefly boiled versions of those fruits are fine.
- Chilling and unmolding"Chill" means at least four hours in the refrigerator, longer for a deep mold. Dipping the mold in cold water helps release, though a very light film of neutral oil is more reliable; dip the outside briefly in warm water to turn it out.
- YieldRoughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups of jelly once the sugar is dissolved, which is four to six small molds or one larger mold, serving four to six.
- The stray fig puddingThe text after the advertising line is a separate recipe. Steamed two hours in a covered greased mold set on a rack in a pan of simmering water, filled no more than two-thirds; top up the water as it evaporates.
Molded jellies were a marker of a well-run kitchen long before they were easy, and the shift visible here is the arrival of cheap powdered gelatine. Earlier nineteenth-century cooks made lemon jelly by boiling calves' feet or isinglass for hours and clarifying the result with egg white; granulated gelatine, sold commercially in America from the later 1800s, reduced that to a five-minute soak. Books like this one, issued free by baking powder companies to put their product in front of home cooks, filled their pages with exactly this sort of dependable, inexpensive dessert, and the recurring line "Royal Baking Powder is Absolutely Pure" is a reminder of the period's fierce commercial fight over alum-based versus cream-of-tartar leaveners.