Home › Honey, Ices and Gelatines › Jelly
Jelly
21/2 Tablespoons Gelatine 1/2 Cup Cold Water 1 Cup Hot Milk 1/2 Cup Cold Milk 1/4 Cup Peach, Plum, Orange, or Other Marmalade 1 Cup Canned Cocoanut Corn Syrup Soak the gelatine in the cold water for 5 minutes; then dissolve it in the hot milk. If the milk curdles, beat it smooth with an egg beater. Add the marmalade.
Add sufficient corn syrup to the milk drained from the cocoanut to make 1 cup.
Add this to the hot milk. Stir the mixture well, and when it is cold, add the cocoanut and the cold milk. Pour it into a mold, and chill it. The marmalade may be used to garnish the pudding instead of being molded into it.
A milk gelatine set with coconut and marmalade, from the era when packaged granulated gelatine had just made molded desserts a beginner's dish. The ingredient list runs on without punctuation in the original; read it as gelatine, cold water, hot milk, cold milk, marmalade, canned coconut and corn syrup.
- The hinge: acid plus hot milkMarmalade is acidic and can curdle hot milk. The recipe's instruction to beat the mixture smooth with an egg beater is given at the point the gelatine is dissolved in the hot milk, before the marmalade goes in, but the same remedy works; adding the marmalade off the heat and stirring it in gradually avoids the problem. The alternative given at the end -- marmalade as a garnish rather than mixed in -- sidesteps it entirely.
- How much gelatine2 1/2 tablespoons of granulated gelatine is roughly three envelopes (about 22 g) for about three cups of liquid. That is a firm, sliceable set of the kind meant to be turned out of a mold; for a softer, spoonable result use half.
- Soaking timeFive minutes is on the short side. Give it 10 minutes in the cold water until no dry granules remain before dissolving it in the hot milk.
- Canned cocoanutThis means shredded coconut packed in liquid, which is why the recipe tells you to drain milk from it. Modern equivalents: use 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut plus canned coconut milk, or drain a can of coconut in syrup and use that liquid.
- Corn syrup as sweetenerThe corn syrup is the only added sugar in the dish besides the marmalade. The recipe does not specify a grade; light corn syrup is the neutral choice. Measured together with the coconut liquid it should total 1 cup.
- Cold milk lastThe cold milk and the coconut go in only after the mixture has cooled, as the recipe directs, before it is poured into the mold.
- Chilling and unmoldingNo time is given. Allow at least 4 hours, and overnight for a large mold. Rinse the mold in cold water before filling, and dip it briefly in warm water to release.
- YieldAbout a quart, serving six to eight as a molded dessert.
Molded milk jellies like this one belong to the first generation of American desserts built around commercial granulated gelatine, which reached home kitchens in the 1890s and displaced the long labor of boiling calves' feet or shaving sheets of isinglass. Once gelatine came in a measured envelope, the technique became a staple of instructional cookery -- reliable, cheap, requiring no oven and no judgment about doneness. The presence of canned coconut and corn syrup points to the early twentieth century: both were industrially packed goods promoted to home cooks in that period.