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Jelly, Yvette
Prepare, freeze and serve a rum jelly, only substituting the same quantity of creme yvette for the rum.
A one-line variation that depends entirely on a recipe printed elsewhere in the book, so the practical work is in reconstructing the base and sourcing the liqueur.
- Read it as a substitution, not a standalone recipeThe instruction assumes you have the book's rum jelly in front of you. Nothing here changes the method, only the flavouring; the composition of the base is not given on this page.
- Crème Yvette is the sticking pointA violet-and-berry liqueur produced in Philadelphia; production is generally said to have ceased in 1969, with a revival from 2009. Crème de violette is the usual stand-in, though it is more sharply floral and less berry-sweet.
- Adjust for sugar, not just flavourRum is essentially unsweetened; crème Yvette and crème de violette carry a great deal of sugar. Swapping volume for volume, as instructed, will give a sweeter and probably softer jelly, so you may want to reduce the sugar in the base — though the recipe as printed does not say to.
- Alcohol weakens gelatinSpirits interfere with the gel network. If your base calls for sheet gelatin or a modern powdered envelope, err on the firm side; a liqueur jelly that will not unmould is the usual failure.
- Add the liqueur coldStir it in once the gelatin liquid has cooled to lukewarm. Heat drives off both the alcohol and the delicate violet aroma that is the entire point of the substitution.
- Colour and servingThe result should set a pale violet; serve with plain cream or unsweetened whipped cream to offset the sugar.
Crème Yvette was a violet liqueur, flavoured with parma violets along with berries and spices, produced in the United States by Charles Jacquin et Cie of Philadelphia and long said to have been named for Yvette Guilbert, the Parisian café-concert singer whom Toulouse-Lautrec drew in her black gloves. Violet liqueurs enjoyed a vogue in the cocktail years on either side of 1900 — the Aviation cocktail is the survivor everyone remembers. The terseness of the entry is itself typical of the period's cookbooks, which built long chains of variations off a single master recipe rather than reprinting the method each time.