Name: Recipe for Aspic Jelly
Ingredients: 5 cups cleared consommé; ½ cup cold water; 2 ounces gelatine

Recipe for Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

5 cups cleared consommé
½ cup cold water
2 ounces gelatine

Directions

Prepare

Soften the gelatine in the cold water until thoroughly softened.

Make the aspic

Heat the consommé until warm, then stir in the softened gelatine until fully dissolved.
Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Gelatine: Forms the gel network that sets the clear consommé into a firm, wobbly aspic.
Cleared consommé: Provides the clear, savory liquid that becomes the body and flavour of the aspic.

The step that matters

Stirring the gelatine into warm consommé until fully dissolved. Undissolved gelatine grains leave cloudy specks and weak setting spots. Gelatine must be fully hydrated first, then dissolved gently, because overheating can weaken its gelling power and make the set less firm.

“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.