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Pure Fruit Juice Jellies
For orange jelly: Put the thin shaved rind of 2 oranges in a bowl, squeeze in the juice of 4. Boil a quart of water with a pound of sugar and pour the hot syrup to the orange peel and juice. Dissolve 2 ounces of gelatine in a cup of hot water separately. When the syrup has stood long enough to draw the flavor of the orange peel filiter it--instead of using white of eggs to clarify--through a flannel bag lined with a sheet of blotting paper. Afterwards mix in the dissolved gelatine.
All sorts of fresh fruit juices can be jellified in the above manner. For a guide to the proportions of fruit and sugar required in so much water see the receipts for fruit ices. The rule for gelatine is 1 1/2 ounces to a quart of water or juice.
A straightforward molded fruit jelly from the era when gelatine had just become a reliable packaged commodity. Two things need attention: the gelatine ratio, which is far stronger than modern taste, and the filtering method, which has an easy substitute.
- The gelatine is the hingeModern powdered gelatine generally runs somewhere around 200-250 bloom, and one 1/4-oz envelope sets 2 cups of liquid to a soft spoonable jelly. The book's rule of 1 1/2 oz to the quart is about three times that strength, producing a rubbery jelly stiff enough to unmold, slice, and stand up on a platter, which is presumably what was wanted. For a jelly you intend to eat from a glass, 1/2 oz (two envelopes) per quart is closer to current expectations.
- Never boil the gelatineDissolve it in hot, not boiling, water and stir it into the syrup once the syrup has cooled to warm. Prolonged boiling degrades the protein and the jelly sets soft or not at all.
- Blotting paper and the flannel bagA double layer of dampened cheesecloth in a sieve, or a paper coffee filter, does the same work. Let it drip without squeezing; pressing the bag pushes fine solids through and clouds the jelly. Clarifying with beaten egg white, which the author is deliberately avoiding, was the standard alternative.
- The peelShave the rind thin enough that no white pith comes with it, or the jelly turns bitter as it stands. The book asks only that the syrup stand "long enough to draw the flavor" of the peel, so a short steep in the hot syrup is the intent.
- Fruits that will not setFresh pineapple, kiwi, papaya and fig contain proteases that digest gelatine. Their juice must be brought to a boil first to deactivate the enzyme, or the jelly stays liquid no matter how much gelatine goes in.
- Proportions for other fruitsThe cross-reference to the fruit ice receipts is doing real work here: a quart of water to a pound of sugar is a fairly light syrup, and acidic juices such as currant or cranberry will want more sugar, sweet ones such as peach rather less. Taste the syrup before the gelatine goes in, since chilling mutes sweetness noticeably.
- Yield and settingAbout 1 1/2 quarts. Four to six hours in the refrigerator at the reduced gelatine rate; the full-strength version sets faster and unmolds after a few seconds in warm water.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to the run of late nineteenth-century professional manuals written for hotel and restaurant kitchens rather than households, and this entry shows a trade cook thinking about efficiency. Until the middle of the century, table jellies meant isinglass from sturgeon bladders or stock boiled down from calves' feet, both laborious and both needing a long clarification with egg white and a hanging jelly bag. Commercially sheeted gelatine, on sale earlier in the century, removed most of that labor, with granulated packaged gelatine following from about 1890 onward; here the egg-white raft is dispensed with altogether, and a flannel bag lined with blotting paper polishes the syrup on its own. Blotting paper was ordinary stationer's stock in an era of dip pens, and it turns up regularly in period kitchens for straining, degreasing and drying fried goods. The emphasis on "pure fruit juice" is also a period signal, made at a time when commercial jellies leaned heavily on coal-tar colors and artificial essences.