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Champagne Jelly
Dissolve one package of Cox's or other fine shred gelatine in 1/2 pint of hot water with 6 ounces of sugar in it. Beat about over the fire to dissolve it quickly. Then strain the dissolved gelatine into a quart of champagne in a large bowl. Set on ice and when it is about to set take out half a cupful and beat it with a wire egg whisk 1 minute. Return the frothed jelly to the bowl, stir round once and let it remain on ice to solidify, either in the bowl to be cut out in blocks, or in glasses. There will be bubbles all through the jelly and a thin froth on top.
A wine jelly that keeps its fizz, which is the whole trick: the champagne is never heated, only chilled with dissolved gelatine stirred through it. Everything below serves that end.
- The hingeNever warm the champagne. The gelatine is dissolved in a small amount of hot water and then strained into cold wine in a large bowl, so the mixture is only tepid at worst. Heat drives off both the carbonation and the aroma, and you are left with sweet flat wine in aspic.
- "One package of Cox's"A Cox's shred gelatine box of this period is generally reckoned at roughly an ounce, though the amount it was meant to set is not stated on the recipe and varied between brands. Here it must set five cups of liquid, and alcohol weakens a gelatine set, so the original quantity is genuinely ambiguous. Reckon on 3 envelopes of modern powdered gelatine (1/4 oz each) for a jelly firm enough to cut in blocks, less if you are setting it in glasses to eat with a spoon.
- Shred gelatine vs. powderShred or leaf gelatine was soaked before dissolving. Modern powder should be sprinkled over a few tablespoons of the cold water and left to bloom for five minutes before the rest of the water, hot, goes in. Stir until fully clear and do not let it boil.
- MeasuresHalf a pint is one cup. A quart of champagne is about 946 ml, so a standard 750 ml bottle leaves you roughly a fifth short; use a magnum or two bottles if you want the full quantity. Six ounces of sugar is a weight, about 7/8 cup of granulated sugar.
- Wine to useA dry brut will taste austere once the sugar is in; an extra-dry or a demi-sec balances better. Prosecco or cava works. Open the bottle only when the gelatine is ready to go in.
- Catching the setting point"About to set" means the mixture has thickened to raw egg-white consistency and mounds slightly on a spoon. Whisk the half cup then, no earlier: too soon and the froth sinks and disappears, too late and it will not fold back in smoothly.
- Setting and yieldAbout five cups, serving eight to ten in glasses. Allow four hours in the refrigerator, better overnight. For cut blocks, set it in a shallow pan rather than a deep bowl and dip the base briefly in warm water before turning out.
- Uncooked alcoholNothing here is simmered off, so the jelly carries close to the full strength of the wine diluted by about a fifth. Not a dish for children or anyone avoiding alcohol.
Wine jellies were the showpiece of the late-nineteenth-century dessert course, and champagne jelly sat at the top of that ladder, appearing at banquets and wedding suppers where the sparkle in the glass could be echoed on the plate. Their rise depended on commercial gelatine: Cox's, famous for its shred gelatine, was one of the brands that turned a laborious calf's-foot reduction into a box on a shelf. The instruction to whisk out a portion and stir it back seems to be a flourish more than a necessity, apparently designed to suspend visible bubbles and leave a fine collar of froth on top so the jelly reads as champagne to the eye as well as the palate. That kind of detail is why a book would bother to print it at all.