jelly again

It’s been over a month since I wrote a post about Jelly Ronson – a glow-in-the-dark gin & tonic jelly recipe by Bompas & Parr. But it has taken me this long to find the time, the courage and an occasion special enough to actually make some myself. Here are the results…

I really recommend listening to Paprika Balkanicus whilst making jelly – their songs are at just the right tempo for sprinkling gelatin and dancing around the kitchen in a jelly-like manner. Dr. Oetker’s sachets (available in most supermarkets) seem to work as well as fine leaf gelatine, but can come out a bit lumpy, so I recommend sieving the mixture when you pour it into the jelly mould. Finding moulds was not as easy as I’d thought. I found a few antique copper ones at Spitalfields market – see the post below – and also managed to find a ‘brioche mould’ at a hardware shop, which seemed to do the trick. Maplins sells blacklights.

Warning: try not to make the delicate raspberry coulis make your jelly look like the aftermath of a murder…

Wobbly jelly facts from Bompas & Parr (number 10 is my favourite):

1. Jelly was first eaten by the Egyptians

2. The gelling agent used in most jellies is gelatine, and is sourced from animals. Berfore leaf gelatine was invented shaved hart’s (young deer’s) horns and the swim bladders of fish called sturgeon were used to make jelly.

3. Jelly used to be a food that only the rich could afford. It was hard work to make, exotic fruit was expensive and there were no refrigerators.

4.The Victorians were experts at making complicated jelly moulds. A shape for the jelly was of a British lion sitting on a plinth.

5. In the past savoury jellies were just as popular as sweet jellies. At Bompas & Parr we’ve even made zebra and crocodile jelly.

6. Some fruits like pineapple won’t set as jellies as they contain enzymes that break down the protein bonds. Others like blackberry and strawberry make wonderful jellies.

7. Gelatin the main gelling agent for jelly was used as a blood plasma substitute during World War II.

8. In 1997 the Army’s Logistics Corp helped to make the biggest jelly at Blackpool Zoo. The jelly was almost one metre tall by seven metres wide and took about 12 hours to set with a blast chiller.

9. If you eat too much jelly it can be a mild laxative!

10. On March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia tested a bowl of lime jelly with an EEG machine and confirmed the earlier testing by Dr. Adrian Upton that a bowl of wobbling jelly has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women.

11. Jelly doesn’t wobble underwater.