Home › The World's Kitchen › Gelee Angelique
Gelee Angelique
Prepare a rum jelly preparation, imbed a quart pudding mould up to its level in ice, and cut sufficient lozenge-shaped half-inch strips of angelica to complete a crown at bottom of mould. With a larding needle take a piece of lozenge, steep in the jelly, and place it at bottom near the edge, then another one, and so on till the crown is completed. Cut twelve strips, one-fifth-inch wide and the height of mould, and arrange against sides of same. Place a round piece of angelica the size of a silver fifty-cent piece in centre of mould, then fill mould with the rum jelly and let stand on ice until well set, or for about an hour and a half, by which time it should be quite firm. Remove, carefully immerse in tepid water, unmould on a cold dish and serve.
A decorated moulded jelly of the Escoffier era, built upside down in a chilled mould. The recipe assumes you already know how to make a firm rum jelly and how to work with a mould packed in ice; the notes below fill in what the original leaves unsaid.
- The hinge: set the jelly in layersThe hinge: the recipe has you steep each piece of angelica in jelly and press it into place, then fill the mould; it does not say to chill the decorations first. In practice, if the full quart goes in over loose decorations they float and slide and the crown ends up in the middle, so it helps to add a thin film of jelly, let it firm, and build up from there.
- "A rum jelly preparation"No quantities are given. For a jelly firm enough to unmould, count on about 3 envelopes of powdered gelatine (roughly 21 g), or the leaf equivalent of some 9-12 sheets, to a quart of liquid, dissolved in hot sweetened liquid and cooled. Add the rum off the heat and keep the quantity modest; alcohol weakens the set.
- AngelicaCandied stems of Angelica archangelica, sold in long green strips at baking suppliers and continental groceries. Firm, sticky and bitter-sweet, nothing like glace cherry. If the strips have hardened, a brief soak in warm water makes them cut cleanly and bend against the mould.
- Quart mould, ice bathA quart is 4 cups, about a litre; a charlotte or dariole mould of that size works. Packing the mould in ice up to its rim was the period substitute for refrigeration and it still chills faster than a fridge shelf. A bowl of ice and water with a handful of salt will do, or simply use the refrigerator and allow two to three hours rather than the stated hour and a half.
- Larding needleUsed here only as tweezers on a stick, to place a sticky strip at the bottom of a deep cold mould without disturbing the set jelly. Long-handled tweezers, a skewer or a bamboo pick serve the same purpose.
- Silver fifty-cent pieceA US half dollar measures about 1 1/4 inches (30 mm) across. That is the size of the angelica medallion that ends up as a disc on top of the turned-out jelly.
- Unmoulding"Tepid water" means a few seconds only, and the water should not reach the top of the mould. Any longer and the outer skin liquefies and the sharp edges of the crown blur. Dry the mould, set the cold serving dish on top, and invert.
- YieldA quart mould serves six to eight as a dessert course. Serve it cold and alone, or with a little whipped cream; it collapses if it stands long at room temperature.
Angelica reached European kitchens as a medicinal plant and stayed as a confection: the thick hollow stems are blanched and candied in syrup, a trade long associated with Niort in western France, which still markets the sweet as a local speciality. By the late nineteenth century candied angelica is often said to have served as a standard green in the pastry cook's decorating box, cut into lozenges and leaves. This jelly belongs to the same moment: an elaborate entremets assembled inside an iced mould, its pattern visible only once the whole thing is turned out. Filippini's International Cook Book collects hundreds of such restaurant preparations in shorthand for professional cooks, which is why the rum jelly itself is simply named and never measured.