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Gelatine Jelly
Soak and dissolve half an ounce of gelatine in a gill of cold water, pour over it half a pint of boiling water and stir until the gelatine has quite melted; then add sugar to taste and a flavoring of thinly-pared lemon peel. When it is quite cold set it over the fire with the beaten whites and shells of two eggs, and let it come to a boil, but do not stir it. As soon as it boils take it from the fire and gently pour in one tablespoonful of cold water; let it stand for five or ten minutes and then run it through a jelly-bag. If it is not quite clear, run it through the bag again. When quite clear, mix with it a gill of wine, let stand until nearly cold and pour it into the mould. When set, turn out, and serve.
A plain wine jelly of the sort that once closed every formal dinner, built on the assumption that gelatine needs clarifying. Modern granulated gelatine does not, which makes most of the labor here optional.
- The clarification is the point — and now optionalThe clarification is the point — and now largely optional -- Beaten whites and crushed shells brought to a boil form a raft that traps cloudiness, and stirring breaks it up, which is why the recipe forbids it. The sheet and scrap gelatine of the period could carry protein haze; modern granulated gelatine generally sets clear, so the eggs and the jelly-bag can usually be skipped and the lemon peel simply strained out.
- Weights and measuresA gill is half a cup; half a pint is one cup. Half an ounce of gelatine is 14 g, or two 1/4-oz envelopes of the modern granulated kind. Total liquid comes to about 2 cups including the wine — a firm jelly meant to stand up when unmolded.
- Sugar to tasteNo quantity is given. For 2 cups of liquid, 1/4 cup of sugar reads as a lightly sweet jelly and 1/3 to 1/2 cup as a dessert; dissolve it in the hot liquid before cooling.
- Don't boil it twiceProlonged boiling degrades gelatine's setting power. If you are skipping the egg clarification, dissolve the bloomed gelatine in the hot water without bringing it back to a boil at all.
- The wine goes in coldSherry, Madeira, port or a sweet white all work. Adding it after the jelly has cooled preserves both the alcohol and the aromatics; the half cup of wine in about 2 cups of liquid also slows the set slightly, so allow extra chilling time.
- Lemon peel onlyPare it thinly with no white pith, which turns bitter during the long infusion. Two or three broad strips from one lemon are enough for this quantity.
- Setting and unmoldingFour to six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. Rinse the mould with cold water before filling, and to turn out, dip the base in hot water for a few seconds and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldAbout 2 cups — four small moulds or one 2-cup mould, serving four.
Gelatine jelly is the industrial descendant of calf's-foot jelly, which cooks boiled down, skimmed and clarified over many hours before commercial gelatine arrived; by the 1890s packaged gelatine had made the dish far quicker, and it appears widely in American cookbooks of the era. The elaborate egg-white raft and jelly-bag survive in this text as a habit inherited from the older method.