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Dessert

Jellies and Other Simple Desserts for the Sick

A collection of simple jelly and custard desserts suitable for sick patients.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By E. E. Kellogg · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,632 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the arrowroot jelly

  1. Rub two heaping teaspoonfuls of arrowroot smooth in a very little cold water.

  2. Stir it into a cupful of boiling water, in which should be dissolved two teaspoonfuls of sugar. Stir until clear, allowing it to boil all the time.

  3. Lastly, add a teaspoonful of lemon juice.

  4. Serve cold, with cream and sugar if allowed.

Make the arrowroot blancmange

  1. Rub two and a half tablespoonfuls of best arrowroot smooth in half a cup of cold milk.

  2. Stir slowly into two and a half cups of boiling new milk.

  3. When it begins to thicken, add three fourths of a cup of sugar.

  4. Cook, stirring constantly for several minutes.

  5. Turn into molds and cool.

  6. Serve with fruit juice or fruit sauces.

Make the gelatine and currant jelly

  1. Soak an ounce of Cox's gelatine in half a pint of cold water for fifteen minutes.

  2. Pour over it a teacupful of boiling water. Strain.

  3. Add one pint of currant juice. Add one tablespoonful of sugar.

  4. Set on ice to cool.

Make the moss jelly

  1. Wash about four ounces of moss very clean in lukewarm water.

  2. Boil slowly in a quart of cold water.

  3. When quite dissolved, strain it onto a tablespoonful of currant or raspberry jelly, stirring so as to blend the jelly perfectly with the moss.

  4. Turn into a mold, and cool.

  5. Substitute milk for the water, and proceed as in the foregoing. Flavor with lemon or vanilla.

  6. Strain through a muslin cloth.

  7. Turn into a mold, and let stand till firm and cold.

Make the orange custard

  1. Add the juice of one sour orange to a pint of sweet milk. Heat very slowly until the milk curdles.

  2. Strain and cool.

  3. Beat the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth. Add a little salt if desired.

  4. Add two tablespoonfuls of sugar. A bit of grated lemon rind may also be used for flavoring.

  5. Add lastly a pint of new milk, little by little, beating thoroughly all the while.

  6. Bake in cups set in a pan of hot water.

  7. When firm in the center, take out and set in a cool place.

By E. E. Kellogg. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Currant + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Milk + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Milk + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together19,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a clear or smooth jelly as it boils.
Milk
Provides the body and creaminess of the blancmange and custard.
Cox's gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lightness, and the set custard firms through egg proteins.
Sugar
Sweetens the jellies and custard and balances the sourness of the juices.
Sour orange juice
Acidity curdles the milk, giving the custard its tart flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Heat the orange-milk mixture very slowly. Acid curdles milk, and gentle heat lets the curds form softly. Fast heating can make the milk grainy or tough.

Flavor stand-ins for the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, currant, lemon, orange, egg):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, currant, lemon, orange, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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