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French Sweet Jelly
Prepare one quart of calf's foot or gelatine jelly, sweeten and flavor it with sherry-wine. Choose a fancy jelly-mould, pour in a small quantity of the jelly, and leave it to set for two hours. Choose some fine ripe fruit of any kind in season, wipe it and pick off the stalks; arrange the fruit tastefully around the edge of the mould, fixing them in place with a little jelly; pour in more of the jelly and let it set, continuing in this way until the mould is full. When the jelly is well set, turn it onto a fancy glass dish, garnish with crystallized fruits, and serve.
A layered fruit-in-jelly mould, built up in stages so the fruit stays suspended rather than floating to the top. Nothing here is difficult, but two things decide whether it works: the strength of the jelly and the choice of fruit.
- Calf's foot jellyThe original stock, made by long-boiling split calf's feet, then clarifying with egg white and straining. Almost nobody makes it now; powdered or leaf gelatine is the intended alternative and Oscar says as much.
- How much gelatineFor a jelly firm enough to unmould and hold fruit in place, count on roughly 4 to 5 envelopes of powdered gelatine (about 1 to 1.25 oz) per quart of liquid; leaf gelatine varies by grade, so weigh it rather than count sheets. A dessert-strength jelly set at 1 envelope per pint will tend to slump once it leaves the mould.
- The fruit that will not setFresh pineapple, kiwi, papaya, figs and fresh ginger contain proteases that digest gelatine and leave a soupy mould. Any of these must be cooked or used from a can, where heat has destroyed the enzyme. Berries, grapes, cherries, peaches and citrus segments are all safe raw.
- The sherryAlcohol weakens a gelatine set. Keep wine to about a quarter of the total liquid at most, and add it off the heat: boiling drives off the flavour you are paying for. A medium or cream sherry suits the sweetened jelly better than a dry fino.
- Working temperatureEach new layer should be cool and syrupy, not hot, or it will melt the set layer beneath and the fruit will drift. Let the jelly stand at room temperature until it thickens slightly, then pour. Two hours per layer is generous; in a modern refrigerator 20 to 40 minutes is usually enough.
- Fixing the fruitSet the fruit onto a firm layer and brush or spoon just enough jelly over it to anchor it, chill briefly, then flood with more. Pouring the full depth at once floats everything upward.
- UnmouldingDip the mould to its rim in hot water for 5 to 10 seconds, no longer, then invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position. A metal mould releases far more readily than glass or ceramic.
- YieldA quart of jelly fills a 1.5-quart fancy mould with the fruit and serves 8 to 10.
Moulded jellies were a display food long before they were a convenience one. Until commercial gelatine became cheap in the later nineteenth century, the clear jelly base meant hours of simmering calf's feet and then clarifying the result with egg white and shell until it was bright enough to read through, which is precisely why a tall, glittering, fruit-studded mould signalled a kitchen with staff and time. Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf opened in 1893, and this recipe sits at the hinge: he still names calf's foot first, but allows packaged gelatine in the same breath. The layered construction, fruit set at intervals so it hangs suspended in the clear jelly, recalls the French garde-manger tradition of gelée, and "crystallized fruits" for the garnish are candied fruits, the same glacé cherries and citron used in fruitcake.