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Jellies in Variety
The stock having been made it can now be divided into as many kinds as may be desired, thanks to the flavoring extract makers.
But the stock jelly is already good and mildly flavored and care should be taken not to over season it, or injure its bright appearance. Jelly is quite as much for ornament as use. It can easily be made to attract notice at the finest table for its lustre and rich colors even if never tasted, therefore its appearance is the main consideration. Lemon extract cannot be put in jelly because it makes a milky appearance and dims its brilliancy. Orange extract the same. Most of the other extracts can be used to flavor. Use wine in small proportion to mix with some of the stock and color deep red, but run through the jelly bag again while it is yet warm. Flavor some with vanilla and color it either amber or brown with burnt sugar, and run it through the jelly bag again. Flavor some with strawberry and color it pink, and leave some plain, pale yellow.
This is a finishing procedure rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have a batch of clarified sweet jelly stock, still liquid and warm, waiting to be divided and dressed. The whole point is clarity, so every instruction is really about not clouding the jelly.
- What "the stock" isIn a pastry book of this period the stock jelly would typically be a clarified sweetened gelatin, set with calf's foot or with sheet gelatin and cleared with egg white and shell, though this passage does not say. A modern equivalent is roughly 1 oz of gelatin per quart of sweetened liquid (leaf counts vary with the grade), which gives a jelly firm enough to unmould.
- The hinge: keep it clearEvery flavoring or coloring addition is followed by a second pass through the jelly bag while still warm. As the liquid cools the gelatin begins to thicken and will no longer run clean, so work in small batches over a bowl of warm water and never squeeze the bag; pressure forces sediment through and the batch goes hazy.
- Why lemon and orange cloud itCitrus extracts of the period were citrus oils carried in alcohol. Dropped into a water-based jelly the oil separates out as a fine emulsion, which reads as milkiness. The same is true of most modern citrus oils. If you want lemon flavor, use strained juice and zest infused into the stock before clarifying, not an extract added after.
- Extracts todayVanilla, almond, rose and orange-flower waters behave well because they are largely water-soluble. Anything sold as an "oil" rather than an "extract" or "water" will cloud the jelly. Use a light hand: a teaspoon per pint is ample, and the author's warning about over-seasoning is sound.
- Burnt sugar for amber and brownThis is caramel color, not caramel flavor: sugar cooked well past golden until it smokes slightly, then let down with a little boiling water to a syrup. Cooked that dark it is bitter, so only a few drops are needed, and it should be stirred into a small portion of stock and strained in.
- Wine proportionsThe author gives no ratio beyond "small proportion." Alcohol weakens gelatin's set, so the more wine you add the softer the jelly. Port or a dark sherry gives depth of color as well as flavor.
- ColoringThe pink and red here would have come from cochineal. Modern gel or liquid food colors work, added a drop at a time into a ladleful of warm jelly and then stirred back; adding color directly to the mass streaks it.
- Setting the layersIf you are building the colors into one mould, each layer must be nearly set — tacky to the touch — before the next is poured, and the incoming jelly should be barely warm or it will melt through and muddy the line. Allow several hours in the refrigerator for a quart mould, and dip briefly in warm water to turn out.
A clear jelly was one of the standard show-pieces of the pastry department, and this passage catches the trade at the moment it was handed a shortcut: "thanks to the flavoring extract makers." Commercial extract houses and packaged gelatin had turned jelly from a laborious calf's-foot preparation - boiled down, clarified, and commonly flavored with wine and lemon - into something a cook could vary a dozen ways from a single batch of stock. The author's insistence that jelly "is quite as much for ornament as use" belongs to the same world: the banquet buffet, where moulded jellies in ranked colors, sometimes layered or set around fruit, were arranged to be looked at down the length of a table. That aesthetic priority explains the fussiness about citrus oils. A cloudy jelly tasted no worse, but it failed at the job it was given.