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Currant Juice Jelly
Put an ounce of gelatine into a half pint of cold water, and soak it for two hours; then pour a pint and a half of boiling water over, and mix until it is dissolved; add the juice of a lemon, two breakfast cupfuls of loaf sugar very finely powdered, and the same of any currant juice. Pass through a napkin into moulds, and, when cold, place on the ice to set. When stiff it is ready for use. Another method is to pour in a layer of the jelly and let it harden; then a layer of strawberries, and continue alternately, until the mould is full or the jelly all used up.
A molded gelatin dessert of the sort that carried a formal dinner into its lighter courses. The proportions are sound, but nearly every measure in it is written in a vocabulary that has since changed.
- The gelatineAn ounce of granulated gelatin is four standard quarter-ounce envelopes, about three tablespoons. If you are using sheet gelatin, an ounce is roughly 14-16 sheets depending on grade.
- Soaking timeThe two-hour soak belongs to the coarse, slow-hydrating gelatin of the period. Modern granulated gelatin blooms fully in cold water in 5 to 10 minutes, and sheets in about 5.
- Do not boil itThe boiling water goes over the bloomed gelatin off the heat and is stirred until clear. Gelatin held at a prolonged rolling boil can lose setting strength.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup runs a little larger than a modern measuring cup, roughly 8 to 10 fluid ounces. Two cups of sugar and two cups of currant juice will do; err toward the smaller reading and taste.
- Loaf sugarLoaf or lump sugar was cut from a refined cone and crushed for use. Ordinary granulated sugar, or superfine if you want it to dissolve instantly, is the direct replacement.
- Currant juiceRed currant juice is most likely meant, tart and clear, though the recipe says 'any currant juice'. Bottled red currant nectar or a strained puree works; if you use a sweetened juice, cut the sugar back and adjust after the mixture is warm and tasted.
- Pass through a napkinStrain through several layers of damp cheesecloth or a fine jelly bag. This is what makes the jelly clear rather than cloudy, and it matters more in a molded jelly than in anything else.
- Place on the iceRefrigerate. The full quantity is about a quart and a half of liquid and needs 4 to 6 hours to set firm enough to unmold, longer for a deep mold.
- The layered versionLet each layer set until tacky but not hard before adding the next, or the layers slide apart when turned out. Have the remaining jelly at cool room temperature, not warm, so it does not melt what is already set.
- YieldAbout a quart and a half, serving 8 to 10 from a single large mold.
Molded jellies were the technical showpiece of the late nineteenth-century dessert table, and their spread owed a great deal to packaged gelatin. Earlier cooks extracted their own from calves' feet or isinglass, a long and smelly business; by the time Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated ma"tre d'h"tel, put his name to this book in 1896, sheet and granulated gelatin could simply be bought by the ounce, which is why the recipe opens so casually with "an ounce of gelatine." Red currants were a standard American garden and market fruit of the period, valued for the acidity and pectin that made them a common jelly fruit; currant juice here supplies both the color and the sharpness that keeps two cups of sugar from cloying. The alternating strawberry version is the same trick used in the elaborate ribboned jellies of the era.