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pour a little boiling water over it. Dissolve one ounce of gelatine or of Light's extract of calves' feet in a pint of water, add to that the juice of six lemons, the water in which the rind has been steeped, one tea-spoonful of brandy, one tea-spoonful of rum, and one tea-spoonful of orange flavouring, with water enough to make up a quart; add half a pound of lump-sugar. Give it a boil up, and strain through a muslin; when nearly cold pour it into the mould.
A Victorian moulded lemon jelly, set with sheet gelatine or a proprietary calf's-foot extract. The proportions still work; most of the updating is in the setting agent and the clearing.
- The missing first stepThe recipe assumes you have already pared the rind from the lemons and covered it with boiling water to steep — that is the "water in which the rind has been steeped" called for later. Pare thinly, take no white pith, and let it infuse 20-30 minutes before straining.
- One ounce of gelatineThat is about 28 g, or four standard 7 g envelopes of powdered gelatine, for a quart (an imperial quart, roughly 1.14 litres) of liquid. This is a firm jelly meant to hold a shape and stand at room temperature; for a jelly served in glasses, half that will set.
- Light's extract of calves' feetA proprietary calf's-foot preparation of the sort sold in the nineteenth century, no longer available. The recipe offers it and gelatine as equal alternatives, so leaf or powdered gelatine can be used in its place; bloom the powder in a little of the cold water for five minutes before dissolving.
- Lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar was simply refined cane sugar broken from a cone. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing — half a pound is about 225 g, which reads sweet by modern taste and can be cut to 150-175 g without affecting the set.
- Six lemonsFruit size varies, so counting lemons is unreliable. Six modern lemons give around 300 ml of juice, roughly a quarter of the finished quart and very sharp; measure the juice and make up the balance with water rather than counting fruit.
- Do not hard-boil it"Give it a boil up" should mean bringing it just to the point of boiling to dissolve sugar and gelatine and throw the scum. Prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's setting power and drives off much of the brandy, rum and orange flavouring — add the spirits at the end of the heating if you want them to register.
- Straining and clarityLemon juice leaves a cloudy jelly. Pass it through a jelly bag or doubled muslin without squeezing, and pour the first cloudy runnings back through; period cooks whisked in a beaten egg white and shell before boiling, then strained, to get a brilliant jelly.
- Moulding and turning outPour in when nearly cold, as directed. A quart mould needs at least six hours in the refrigerator, better overnight. Serves six to eight.
Lemon jelly of this kind was a fixture of the Victorian supper table and of invalid cookery, where calf's-foot jelly was prescribed as strengthening food for the sick. Making it from scratch meant simmering split calves' feet for hours, skimming and clarifying — a long job — so the spread of branded extracts and prepared gelatine through the nineteenth century made such dishes much less laborious. This recipe reflects that shift: it names a proprietary extract and ordinary gelatine as equal alternatives, and treats the calf's foot as an option rather than an obligation. The brandy, rum and orange flavouring appear only in teaspoonful doses, too little to be tasted individually.