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Lemon Jelly
Juice of six lemons, grated peel of two, two large cups sugar, one package Coxe's gelatine soaked in two cups cold water, two glasses pale sherry or white wine, one pint boiling water; stir lemon-juice, peel, sugar and soaked gelatine together, and cover for an hour; pour the boiling water over them; stir until all is dissolved perfectly, add wine, strain through flannel, and pour in mold. If fruit yields less than a large coffee-cup juice, add more water, so the jelly may not be tough.
A wine-and-lemon gelatin from the era when packaged gelatine had just made such things easy. The quantities are workable, but the gelatine measure and the "glasses" of sherry both need translating.
- The package of gelatineThe brand appears in American cookbooks as both "Coxe's" and "Cox's" (J. & G. Cox of Edinburgh). Period boxes were small, on the order of an ounce; reckoned that way it is about four modern 1/4-oz envelopes, which gives a jelly firm enough to unmold in this much liquid.
- "Two glasses" of sherryIf a wineglass is meant, the usual nineteenth-century American reckoning is about 2 fluid ounces, so roughly 1/2 cup total; "glass" is unspecific, though, and a larger vessel may be intended. Either way the measure is loose, and more wine means a softer, boozier set.
- The hinge: don't boil the gelatineThe boiling water is poured over the soaked gelatine and stirred until dissolved. Prolonged boiling weakens gelatine's setting power, and adding the wine last keeps its flavor and alcohol from being driven off.
- Total liquidTwo cups for soaking, one pint boiling, about 1/2 cup wine and roughly 3/4 to 1 cup lemon juice comes to about 5 1/2 cups. The closing note is the important one: if the lemons are stingy, top up with water rather than letting the ratio go gelatine-heavy and rubbery.
- Straining through flannelUse a jelly bag, doubled damp muslin, or a coffee filter set in a sieve. Let it drip without squeezing; pressing pushes lemon pulp and zest oil through and clouds the jelly.
- ZestGrate only the yellow of the two lemons. White pith carried into the syrup turns the finished jelly bitter, and the hour of covered steeping extracts plenty of oil from the peel alone.
- Setting and unmoldingChill at least 6 hours, overnight for a large mold. To turn out, dip the mold to its rim in warm (not hot) water for 5 to 10 seconds and invert onto a wetted plate so the jelly can be slid into position.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts, serving 8 to 10. The wine is never cooked, so this is not a dessert for children.
Wine jelly of this kind was a fixture of American dessert tables and sickrooms alike through the second half of the nineteenth century. Before packaged gelatine, the same dish meant simmering calf's feet for hours, clarifying the stock with egg white and straining it through a flannel bag — flannel being the standard straining cloth of the period, which is often said to be why this recipe still calls for it even though commercial gelatine needs far less clarifying. Cox's Sparkling Gelatine, a Scottish product widely sold in the United States, was one of the brand names that made the jelly a weeknight possibility rather than a two-day project, and cookbooks of the period name it the way they name particular baking powders. Wine jellies also had a medical reputation: they were among the standard dishes prescribed for invalids and convalescents, thought to be nourishing and easy to keep down, which is part of why so many general household books like The Dixie Cook Book carry more than one version.