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Currant Jelly
Procure twenty-five pounds small-sized fresh currants (or what are generally called "Dutch" currants), place in a mortar and pound to almost a pulp. Remove and place in a large enamelled saucepan, stir on a moderate fire to a boiling point, carefully press through colander into a basin and through fine sieve into a large bowl. Carefully take up jelly with a quart measure and pour into a copper basin, set on the fire, let it come to a boil, remove scum from surface with a skimmer and add as many pounds granulated sugar as there are quarts of jelly--that is, one pound sugar to every quart of jelly. Mix well with spatula, let briskly boil for a few minutes, dip skimmer into jelly, lift it up and drop a few drops on a cold plate. If drops are thick and do not spread out like water the jelly is done, but if it drops like water cook for two or three minutes more, or until it obtains the desired point, and remove from fire to table. Carefully warm up sufficient jelly glasses, thoroughly wipe, fill up with jelly and let rest for six hours. Cut out round pieces white wax paper of same diameter as tops of jars, lightly dip papers in brandy, arrange on top of jelly, tightly close their covers, place in a cool place and use as required. Two or three pounds well picked and cleaned strawberries or raspberries will greatly improve flavor of jelly.
This is a professional-scale jelly: twenty-five pounds of fruit is roughly a 10-12 quart yield, written for a hotel larder rather than a home stove. The proportions and the tests still work, but the quantities and the sealing method need rethinking.
- Scale it downTwenty-five pounds of currants yields a very large quantity of jelly; the recipe gives no yield, so any figure is an estimate. Four pounds of fruit is a manageable home batch and keeps the boil shallow enough to set properly; deep pans of jelly take much longer to reach setting point and darken as they go.
- "Dutch" currantsAlmost certainly red currants, Ribes rubrum; "Red Dutch" and "White Dutch" were both long-established named varieties. They are naturally high in both pectin and acid, which is why no added pectin, lemon juice or water appears anywhere in the recipe.
- The sugar ratio is lowOne pound of sugar to one quart of juice is roughly half the sugar most modern jelly formulas use, which run closer to a pound of sugar per pint. It will set, because currants carry so much pectin, but the jelly is tarter and keeps less well.
- The copper basinAn unlined copper preserving pan was standard because it conducts heat fast and evenly. Prolonged contact between acid fruit and bare copper is no longer considered acceptable; use a wide stainless or enamelled pan, which is what the first stage of this recipe already calls for.
- Strain, do not forcePounding the fruit and pressing it through a colander gives a high yield but pushes fine pulp through, which is why the second pass through a fine sieve matters. For a clear jelly, let the juice drip through the sieve or a jelly bag without squeezing; forced juice clouds.
- The cold-plate testThis is the hinge of the recipe and it is still the most reliable test. On a thermometer, setting point is 220F at sea level, about 8F above the boiling point of water where you are. Take the pan off the heat while you test, or it will overshoot in the half-minute you are watching the plate.
- SealingWarmed glasses, a brandy-dipped wax paper disc and a press-on cover were the period defence against surface mould, and they are not a seal. Fill sterilised jars, apply two-piece lids and process in a boiling-water bath, or treat the jelly as a refrigerator preserve and use it within a few weeks.
- The six-hour restCurrant jelly continues to firm for several hours and sometimes a full day after potting. Do not judge the set, or move the jars about, until it has stood undisturbed.
- The berry additionTwo or three pounds of strawberries or raspberries against twenty-five pounds of currants is roughly a tenth by weight. Scale accordingly and add them with the currants at the first boil; both are lower in pectin, so keeping the proportion small protects the set.
Currant jelly was the workhorse preserve of the nineteenth-century kitchen, valued less as a breakfast spread than as a cooking ingredient: a spoonful went into sauces for venison and mutton, into Cumberland sauce, and into glazes for game. Red currants earned that place because they are among the most pectin-rich and acidic of temperate fruits, setting firmly with nothing but sugar and heat at a time when commercial pectin did not exist. The reliance on cold-plate testing, a copper preserving pan and brandy-dipped paper discs is characteristic of professional practice around 1900, and The International Cook Book is a professional book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York. Hence the twenty-five-pound starting weight and the instruction to measure juice by the quart and match it pound for pound with sugar, a rule of thumb a cook could apply to any quantity of fruit that came through the door.