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Raspberry Jelly
Remove the tops and pick carefully over one pint of freshly-gathered raspberries; put them into a saucepan with a little water, and stir until they are hot, then strain them through a jelly-bag. Mix with the liquor one ounce of dissolved isinglass and one-half pound of fine sugar, stir the whole over the fire until hot, then pass it through a fine hair-sieve. Pour the jelly into a mould, and pack it in ice until set. Dip the mould in tepid water, turn the jelly out onto a dish, garnish with candied fruit, and serve.
A straightforward moulded fruit jelly from the era before packaged gelatine dessert. The only real obstacles are the setting agent and the vagueness of the fruit-to-liquid ratio.
- IsinglassA collagen gelatine made from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in sheets or shreds and soaked before use. Powdered or leaf gelatine replaces it directly; isinglass sets somewhat weaker and more variably than modern gelatine, so an ounce here is not an ounce of modern powder.
- How much gelatineFor a jelly firm enough to turn out of a mould, allow roughly two 1/4-oz envelopes (about 14 g) of powdered gelatine per 2 cups of liquid, bloomed in cold liquid before it goes into the warm juice. Raspberry juice is acidic, which slightly weakens the set, so err toward the firmer side.
- Yield of juiceOne pint of raspberries yields only about 3/4 to 1 cup of strained juice, which the original never states. Top the strained liquor up with water to a full pint before calculating gelatine, or the jelly will be dense and oversweet.
- Do not boil"Stir until they are hot" is deliberate. Raspberry flavour and colour are volatile and boiling flattens both; bring the fruit just to steaming to break the cells, and heat the sugar-and-gelatine mixture only until everything is dissolved.
- SugarHalf a pound is 1 cup plus a little more, against roughly a pint of juice. That is a Victorian sweetness level; two-thirds of it makes a jelly that tastes more of raspberry, though sugar also contributes body, so do not cut it much further.
- Jelly-bag and hair sieveA jelly-bag is a close-woven cloth cone; a double layer of damp cheesecloth in a sieve does the same work. Let it drip rather than squeezing, or the jelly will be cloudy. The later "fine hair-sieve" is just a final strain to catch undissolved gelatine and scum.
- SettingPacking the mould in ice is refrigeration; four to six hours in the fridge, or overnight, gives a cleaner set. Rinse the mould in cold water before filling to help release.
- Turning outA few seconds in tepid water is enough. Longer and the outer surface melts and the jelly slumps on the dish.
- ServesAbout four as a small moulded dessert, depending on the mould.
Moulded fruit jellies were a display food long before they were a family dessert: clear, quivering, unmoulded onto a flat dish and garnished, they were the sort of thing a hotel kitchen sent out at the cold end of a long menu. Isinglass, the fish-bladder gelatine specified here, was among the finest setting agents available and was prized because it gave a brilliantly clear jelly where boiled calves' feet gave a cloudy, faintly meaty one; it was also used, and still is in some breweries, to fine beer and wine. By the time Oscar Tschirky's book appeared in 1896, commercial sheet and granulated gelatine were increasingly available in American kitchens, and recipes like this one sit on the hinge between the two. The instruction to pack the mould in ice is a reminder that chilling depended on ice rather than a switch, and that "freshly-gathered raspberries" meant a short summer window rather than a year-round shelf.