BLACK CURRANT JELLY
The juice of black currants makes excellent jelly in the ordinary way if we boil a pint of black currant juice with a pound of sugar till it sets; but a mould of black currant jelly suitable to be used as a sweet at dinner can be made by adding less sugar and thickening the juice with corn-flour, allowing about a tablespoonful to every pint, and pouring it into a mould or plain round basin. The mould can be ornamented as follows, and we will suppose a pudding-basin to be used for the purpose. We will suppose the mould of jelly to have been turned out on to a clean sheet of white paper. Pick some of the brighter green black-currant leaves off the tree, and place these round the base of the mould with the stalk of the leaf pushed underneath and the point of the leaf pointing outwards. Now choose a few very small bunches of black currants, wash these and dip them into very weak gum and water, and then dip them into white powdered sugar. They now look, when they are dry, as if they were crystallized or covered with hoar-frost. Place one of these little bunches, with the stalk stuck into the mould of jelly, about an inch from the bottom, so that each bunch rests on a green leaf. Cut a small stick of angelica and stick it into the top of the mould upright, and let a bunch of frosted black currants hang over the top. If we wish to make the mould of jelly very pretty as a supper dish, where there is a good top light, we can dip the green leaves into weak gum and water and then sprinkle over them some powdered glass.
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From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet by A. G. Payne
