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Ornamental Jellies
1. Fruits in jelly: With the very clearest and brightest jelly various pretty devices can be carried out. Place a fine bunch of grapes in a mold and fill up with jelly. Or partially line a mold with fruits dipped in jelly and let them get cold in place before filling up with jelly. Orange and lemon slices float, but they can be dipped in warm jelly and pushed down to line molds of jelly that is nearly set. Peach and apricot quarters may be done the same way. 2. Fish and other illusions in jelly: Many jelly molds and articles of crockery were have fishes and fruits stamped in for ornament. Pour a teaspoonful of blanc-mange or jaune mange into the pattern, set it in ice water, turning it about so as to thinly coat it, then fill up the hollow with jelly and let it all set firm. Line a large jelly mold with a coating of clear jelly turned about in it in a pan of ice water. Place your little white or yellow fishes on the lining and when they have become solidly set fill up the mold with clear jelly nearly cold. The fishes appear solid enough from the outside but when cut all that can be found of them is a small mark no thicker than a knife blade. 3. Macedoine jelly: Cut different colored jellies in small dice and mix them together. Moisten with a little clear jelly melted but nearly cold and fill molds with it. 4. Fill molds with 3 colors by letting one larger set solid and then pouring another kind upon it.
These are four decorating techniques rather than a single formula, and they all depend on one thing: a jelly base clear enough and slow enough to work with. Everything below assumes you have made a sweetened, wine- or juice-flavoured gelatin jelly and clarified it.
- The hinge: work at the syrup stage"Nearly cold" jelly is the whole technique. It means jelly cooled to the point where it is syrupy and coats a spoon but has not begun to set in ribbons. Poured warmer it melts the fruit lining or the set layer beneath; poured colder it seizes into a cloudy mass and will not bond.
- Gelatin quantitiesThe original assumes calf's-foot stock, sheet gelatin or isinglass, none of which are quantified here. For a firm mould that will unmould and hold a pattern, figure about 2 1/2 to 3 teaspoons of powdered gelatin per 2 cups of liquid. Anything softer will slump the moment it leaves the mould.
- Clear jelly means clarified jellyWhitehead's "clearest and brightest" is not a matter of buying better gelatin. Period practice was to whisk egg white and crushed shell into the warm liquid, bring it just to the boil, then let it stand and strain through a jelly bag without pressing. Skipping this leaves a haze that hides the fruit.
- Blanc-mange and jaune mangeBlanc-mange here is the opaque white setting cream (milk or almond milk with gelatin), used purely as paint for the stamped fish and fruit. Jaune mange is its yellow counterpart, usually egg yolks with wine or orange, sugar and isinglass or gelatin, cooked to a custard. Either can be replaced by any opaque set cream; the point is only that it holds the shape of the mould's relief.
- Fruits that will not setFresh pineapple, kiwi, papaya, figs and fresh ginger carry proteases that digest gelatin, and the mould will never firm. Cook or use canned versions of these. The peaches, apricots and citrus in the original are all safe, though very juicy fruit should be drained and patted dry before dipping.
- Lining a mould over iceSet the mould in a bowl of ice and water no deeper than the mould's rim, pour in a few tablespoons of jelly, and rotate steadily until it films the sides. Two thin coats are more reliable than one thick one. Chill the empty mould first and the coat sets faster and more evenly.
- Layered mouldsFor point 4, let each layer set until it is firm but still tacky to the touch before adding the next, and add the next at the syrup stage. A fully hardened, cold layer will not bond, and the finished jelly splits along the seam when turned out.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in hot water to a count of five, no longer, wipe it dry, and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position. Metal moulds release faster than crockery ones.
- Yield and timingA quart mould serves eight to ten. Allow four hours minimum in the refrigerator for a plain jelly and most of a day for the lined and layered versions, which set in stages.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to the run of late nineteenth-century manuals written for hotel and restaurant kitchens rather than households, which is why these entries read as tricks of the trade rather than dinner instructions: the fish that vanishes when the jelly is cut is a professional's joke, staged for a table of guests. Macedoine, the mixed dice of point 3, is a French kitchen term generally traced to the idea of Macedonia as a patchwork of peoples, and by this period it was applied equally to diced vegetables in aspic and diced fruit in sweet jelly. The stamped moulds Whitehead mentions -- crockery, with fishes and fruits in relief -- are now largely collectors' items, which is the main obstacle to reproducing point 2 exactly as written.