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Lemon Jelly
1/2 box gelatine or 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine ½ cup cold water 2½ cups boiling water 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup lemon juice Soak gelatine twenty minutes in cold water, dissolve in boiling water, strain, and add to sugar and lemon juice. Turn into mould, and chill.
A plain moulded lemon jelly of the sort that stood in for fruit at the end of a nineteenth-century dinner. The proportions are sound, but the gelatine measure and one water quantity need translating.
- The water amountsThe printed page gives ½ cup cold water for the soaking, which is what our text now reads. That is enough to cover and swell the gelatine, and it brings the recipe to three cups of water plus ½ cup lemon juice. A full 1½ cups of cold water instead would give a jelly too slack to unmould.
- Half a box of gelatineA box of granulated gelatine was commonly reckoned at about an ounce, so half a box is in the region of two modern ¼-oz envelopes — near enough to the alternative given, 2 tablespoons. That should set roughly a quart firmly enough to turn out of a mould.
- Never boil itThe hinge of the dish. Gelatine goes into cold water to swell, then dissolves in water that has boiled — but the mixture itself should not be boiled afterwards, and it should not sit hot for long. Prolonged heat and the strong acid of the lemon juice both break down the set.
- Why strainStraining catches undissolved granules and any scum, and it is what gives the jelly its clarity. Use a fine sieve or a scald-rinsed cloth, and pour gently so as not to beat in bubbles.
- Lemon juiceHalf a cup is the juice of about three or four lemons; use fresh, as bottled juice carries a dull note that shows plainly in something this bare. Add it off the heat, with the sugar, so the flavour stays bright.
- Chilling and unmouldingFour hours in the refrigerator is realistic, overnight is safer. Rinse the mould with cold water before filling, then dip it briefly in warm — not hot — water and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into place.
- YieldAbout one quart, serving six. The recipe directs only that it be turned into a mould and chilled.
- If you want a softer jellyCut the gelatine to about 1½ envelopes and set it in individual glasses rather than a mould. The Victorian standard was firm enough to hold sharp architectural edges, which is stiffer than most people want now.
Moulded jellies were a display dish before they were a dessert: clear, quivering, cut into shapes, and expensive in labour because gelatine once had to be extracted at home by boiling calves' feet or isinglass for hours and then clarifying the result with egg white. Commercial sheet and granulated gelatine, sold by the box from the later nineteenth century, collapsed that day of work into twenty minutes of soaking, and cookbooks responded with whole chapters of jellies, sponges and Bavarian creams. Lemon jelly is the plainest of them and the template for the rest — the same gelatine, water and sugar base reappears flavoured with wine, coffee, orange or fruit juice. Its appearance in a cooking-school book is telling: it teaches proportion and the behaviour of gelatine with acid, and it costs almost nothing to practise.