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Coffee Jelly
Half box Coxe's gelatine soaked half an hour in a half tea-cup cold water (as little water as possible), one quart strong coffee, made as if for the table and. sweetened to taste; add the dissolved gelatine to the hot coffee, stir well, strain into a mold rinsed with cold water just before using, set on ice or in a very cool place, and serve with whipped cream. This jelly is very pretty, formed in a circular mold with tube in center; when turned out fill the space in center with whipped cream heaped up a little. -Mrs. A. Wilson, Rye, N. Y.
A simple two-ingredient set dessert that depends almost entirely on getting the gelatine ratio and the chill right. The hinge is temperature: the coffee must be hot enough to dissolve the bloomed gelatine completely, but never boiled once the gelatine is in.
- Half a box of Coxe'sHalf a box of the gelatine sold under this name is generally reckoned at about half an ounce. That corresponds to two modern quarter-ounce envelopes (roughly 4½ teaspoons) for the quart of liquid here; a third envelope gives a firmer set that unmolds cleanly. The original quantity is genuinely approximate, so err on the firm side if you intend to turn it out.
- SoakingThe half-hour soak in a half tea-cup (about 1/4 cup) of cold water is blooming, and it still matters with granulated gelatine — five to ten minutes is enough for modern powder. Use as little water as the recipe says so the coffee flavor is not diluted.
- Do not boilAdd the softened gelatine to hot, not boiling, coffee and stir until no grains remain. Gelatine held at a boil loses setting strength, and reheated coffee turns bitter.
- "Strong coffee, made as if for the table"Brew it strong, at about two tablespoons of grounds per cup; the sugar and the chill both mute the flavor considerably.
- Sweetening"Sweetened to taste" in a cold set dessert means more than you would put in a cup to drink — start around 1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar per quart and taste the warm liquid, remembering that cold dulls sweetness.
- Straining and the moldStrain through a fine sieve or cloth to catch coffee grounds and any undissolved gelatine. Rinsing the mold with cold water leaves a film that helps release; a brief dip of the mold in warm water and a firm shake will turn it out.
- Chilling"Set on ice or in a very cool place" means the refrigerator: four to six hours, or overnight for a tube mold. It will keep two or three days covered, though the surface dulls.
- YieldA quart of jelly serves six to eight. The center of a ring mold takes roughly a cup of cream, whipped to soft peaks and lightly sweetened.
Coffee jelly belongs to the great age of American gelatine cookery, which began when packaged, pre-purified gelatine replaced the day-long labor of boiling calves' feet for stock. Coxe's Sparkling Gelatine, generally taken to be the product of an Edinburgh firm and sold in the United States in the nineteenth century, appears in cookbooks of the 1870s and 1880s the way later ones name Knox — as a generic, not an endorsement. That a household jelly could be built on nothing but coffee, sugar and gelatine says something about both: coffee was cheap and universal in American kitchens by the 1880s, and gelatine had become reliable enough that a cook could plan a molded dessert with confidence. The Dixie Cook-Book, like its sister compilations, gathered such recipes by contribution, which is why this one arrives from a Mrs. A. Wilson of Rye, New York, in a book with Southern in its title. Coffee jelly later became far more strongly associated with Japan, where it remains a standard café dessert.