Blanc-Mange & Assorted Jellies

Somehow, none of the dishes I prepared for Candlelight Tours actually fit the October HFF challenges. None the less, I want to record them for future reference. 

The most popular and accurate was a pair of Gelatine Blanc-Mange molds I made according to the instructions in Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt Book (1850).

As given, this receipt calls for 2 quarts milk, the rinds of 3 lemons, half a nutmeg, 1.5 oz gelatin, and 1/4 lb sugar. I slightly increased the gelatin to 2 oz (giving a ratio of "1 packet gelatin per cup liquid" which was recommended to me as a safe margin to make a molded jelly hold its shape), and omitted the cold water. Instead, I followed the instructions as far as boiling the lemon and nutmeg in 1/4 of the milk, but I sprinkled the gelatin over the rest of the (cold) milk, before pouring on the hot milk. I made this twice: first by then boiling the whole mixture, and a second by not heating it further, and got very similar results both times.

Serving suggestion I received:
use leftover colored jelly to decorate the blanc-mange.

This macedoine of fruits, made with raspberries in a clear (white grape juice) gelatin uses modern methods (ie, prepared gelatin and juice instead of boiling up calves' feet and juicing the fruit myself), but the arrangement and presentation are based on recipes in Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) and Francatelli's The Modern Cook (1846).

Jelly Molded with Fresh Fruit or Macedoine des Fruits (Beeton) aka Macedoine of Fruits (Francatelli) are simply fruits set into the layers of jelly. Francatelli claims any jelly can be used, while Beeton recommends a clear, sweet jelly, but in either case you set a layer of jelly, arrange the fruit as prettily as possible, set in more jelly, and repeat. I found that even using very small layers, the raspberries tend to get loose and float (just from the motion of setting the mould back in the refrigerator). Fortunately, they still look pretty cool out of the neat layers I had originally set them in. To get the transparency, I used white grape juice, with red raspberries for contrast. For the actual process, I added 1 packet (1 oz) unflavored gelatin powder to 1 cup of juice; and since I needed small layers, I actually only made 1-2 cups at a time: heating 1/4-1/3 of the juice in the microwave for 30 seconds to a 1 min, while sprinkling the gelatin over the the cold juice, then stirring in the hot juice until the gelatin was fully dissolved, pouring it into the two molds, and letting the layer cool for an hour or two. 

Macedoine des Fruits

The striped jelly, aka panachee jelly (Francetelli) or jelly of two colors (Beeton) was prepared likewise. I used cran-raspberry juice and apple juice, again in the proportion of 1 cup of juice per packet gelatin, and simple alternated layers of the two. Unfortunately, the color contrast wasn't as great as I hoped, and only in bright sunlight could the orange and red be easily distinguished.

Note to self: higher color contrast next time.