Macedoine and Other Eccentric Jellies

A Jelly made using a macedoine mould in my collection

Perhaps the most singular culinary expression of the advance of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian Britain was the extraordinary popularity of mass-produced copper jelly moulds. By the middle of the nineteenth century the fashion for this kind of kitchen kit had accelerated into a gastronomic craze. This was the result of the convergence of two emerging phenomena - the availability of cheap factory made gelatine and the increasing use of powerful pneumatic presses to stamp out copper into ever more intricate shapes. After a hundred years of being an unloved, even despised children's party food, a jelly revival has once again recently hit the fashionable food sector. This was started about twenty years ago by my dear genius friend Peter Brears and to a lesser extent by myself, when both of us started running country house events where we recreated jellies and other moulded foods for the public using original period moulds. I also started running courses on the subject in the early 1990s. More recently, Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, both attendees of my courses who have always kindly acknowledged the debt they owe to Peter and myself, have made a career for themselves out of the genre. However, despite modern computer 3D printing technology, the moulds available to the contemporary aspiring jelly maker just cannot compete with those of the Victorian kitchen. Just look at these!

A few nineteenth manufacturers designed and produced highly specialised multi-part moulds for creating very unusual jellies with mysterious internal components, such as spiral columns and pyramids of fruit. Some of these striking British designs were even admired from afar by important chefs on the other side of the English Channel. In Cosmopolitan Cookery (London: 1870), the great Second Empire French chef Felix Urbain Dubois illustrated two of these extraordinary English inventions together with recipes he designed for them. He probably encountered them in London when he was exiled there during the Franco-Prussian War. One he illustrated was the macedoine mould, a fancy copper mould with a dome shaped internal liner, both clipped together with three metal pins. Here is Dubois's illustration -

This mould was utilised by pouring a transparent jelly into the gap between the mould and the liner. Once the jelly had set, warm water was poured into the liner, which enabled it to be removed. Small pieces of fruit (the 'macedoine') and more jelly could then be used to fill up the resulting cavity. The finished dish was a striking hollow jelly containing a mosaic of coloured fruit, which distorted into an abstract pattern because of the effects of refraction caused by the flutings on the mould. I am fortunate enough to own a complete macedoine mould and used it to make the jelly at the top of this posting. However, my example is a different design from that which Dubois illustrates, though in principle it functions in exactly the same way. Although macedoine moulds are extremely rare - I have only ever seen two others, which lacked their liners. My example is the only one I have ever encountered which is complete. Here are some photographs.

Macedoine Jelly from above

Another Macedoine Jelly made with this mould

Cross section through the macedoine jelly above

The chained pins ensure that the inner liner is kept stable and at an equal distance from the outer mould.

Macedoine jellies were also be made in plain moulds. The striking example above is from Jules Gouffé, The Royal Book of Pastry and Confectionery (London: 1874). A large plain charlotte mould would have been used to make this. It has been garnished with jelly croutons to create the crest around the top and is surmounted by a gum paste or nougat tazza filled with real or ice cream strawberries. Although a very weak jelly with a light 'mouth feel' was used to make a macedoine, the fruit inside acted as a very strong armature which could support a decorative structure like the tazza above.

Even rarer than the macedoine mould illustrated by Dubois is this remarkable and lovely version, which reminds me of a Maya pyramid or ziggurat. It has a liner very similar to the other one and makes the most wonderful jelly filled with a pyramid of fruit. I have never ever seen another in this design.

A Jelly containing a pyranid of apricots made in the stepped macedoine mould above

The second English mould illustrated by Dubois in Cosmopolitan Cookery (1870) is a version of a very popular novelty mould first marketed by Temple and Reynolds of Belgravia in 1850. The location of their shop gave the name to this particular dish, the most extraordinary of all Victorian novelty jellies, the Belgrave. The outer copper moulds are quite common, but a complete set with a full compliment of pewter spiral liners is a rare find. Two versions were made, the round and the oval, the latter being very scarce now, especially with liners. The liners were placed into a jelly mould which was filled with clear jelly. When the jelly had set, the liners were literally 'screwed' out of the jelly by pouring hot water into them. This resulted in a number of spiral cavities which could then be filled with a coloured jelly or blancmange.

Urbain Dubois's 1870 illustrations of the Belgrave Mould

An illustration and instructions for making a Belgrave Jelly from a very late edition of Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery (London: 1905) 

My very rare oval Belgrave mould with pewter liners

Oval Belgrave Jelly made with the mould above

The more orthodox round Belgrave Jelly

The two most common jelly moulds which included liners to create striking internal features were the Alexandra Cross and Brunswick Star. These were designed to celebrate the wedding of Queen Victoria's eldest son Edward Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Alexandra Cross jelly had the Danish Flag running all the way through it, while the Brunswick Star had a white Garter Star running through it, both rather like a stick of rock. Here is an advertisement from the 1890s published by the cookery teacher and mould retailer Mrs Agnes Marshall. Surviving liners are almost unknown.

To make both, coloured jellies were poured into the mould in a particular order and then the liners were inserted. The rest of the jelly was poured in around the liner, which was removed by pouring hot water into it. The cavity was then filled with white blancmange.

A finished Alexandra Cross jelly

A finished Brunswick Star jelly

Slices of Brunswick Star jelly

Jelly extravaganza in Harewood House. There is an oval Belgrave jelly in the centre of the table

About three years ago I manned the wonderful period kitchen at Harewood House and demonstrated period jelly making to the general public. As the jellies came from the moulds, I dressed the dining room with a typical Victorian entremet course using Princess Mary's priceless Venetian glass dessert service. Last week I was at Harewood again, this time dressing the kitchen and gallery (the most wonderful room in England) with Regency period food for a major forthcoming BBC drama production, which I will tell you more about after it has been transmitted at Christmas. I made a large number of jellies and blancmanges for this production using Staffordshire ceramic moulds made in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. To whet your appetite, here are a few photos. As you can see, the Victorians were not the only ones to have beautiful moulded foods - the late Georgians could give them (and Bompas and Parr) a real run for their money.

Man in the Moon and Star flummeries made in early nineteenth century Staffordshire moulds

A flummery hedgehog made in an early nineteenth century ceramic mould

Pineapple flummery made in a 1790s Wedgewood mould

A footman struggles with two flummery Solomon's Temples, one of my Georgian signature dishes

There is a little more on these remarkable jellies here

Solomon's Temple in Flummery - a Culinary Mobile

A footman at Harewood House struggles with two misbehaving Solomon's Temple flummeries

A number of English cookery books published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century offer a recipe for making a 'Solomon's Temple in Flummery', a dish that would be very difficult to replicate today, unless you happened to own an original mould from the period. These are extremely rare, so it is unlikely that there will be a major revival of the dish. The earliest recipe was published by the Manchester confectioner Elizabeth Raffald in 1769, though of course the dish required a specialist mould so would have been the invention of a potter rather than a cook. Earlier this year my friend Tony Barton cast me a fake one in silicone rubber for the exhibition I curated on Mrs Raffald, which is currently running at Rienzi at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, which I have discussed in an earlier posting. Despite being cast from rubber, it made a lovely feature on the table and was garnished with small dianthus flowers, candied raspberries and pippin knots or jumballs.

This large salt glazed stoneware mould made in Staffordshire between 1730-50 is the prototype of the Solomon's Temple mould. Mrs Raffald describes 'steps' in her recipe, so this is the kind of mould she almost certainly used. Later creamware Solomon's Temple moulds are somewhat simplified, like that illustrated below. Courtesy Winterthur.

A Wedgewood creamware Solomon's Temple mould from the 1780s. 

Tinned steel versions of Solomon's Temple moulds survived into the early twentieth century

Mrs Raffald's husband John was a gardener and seedsman, who organised horticultural competitions at an inn which the couple ran together in Salford. The evidence points to the fact that he was fond of growing pinks and carnations. This is why I decided to use the pinks as a garnish. His brother grew fruit in a market garden, which he sold from a stall in the market near the Exchange in Manchester. This is why I used candied raspberries to surround the flummery. Mrs Raffald instructs us to use rock candy sweetmeats. Candied fruit or peel is what was usually meant by 'sweetmeats'. The term 'rock candy' indicates that the sweetmeats had a sugar crystal or candy coating. 

A late Victorian confectioner called Robert Wells also included a recipe in his book Ornamental Confectionery (London: 1898). Wells garnishes his Solomon's Temple in Blancmange, as he calls it, 'with jumballs, apple paste and rock candies'. This is why I garnished the Houston fake rubber Solomon's Temple with pippin knots, or jumballs, as well as the rock candy raspberries. Here it is on the table surrounded by beautiful eighteenth century silver and porcelain.

However, this static rubber fake cannot give a true impression of what this eccentric dish really looks like and more importantly how it behaves. Because it is made of flummery, which is a kind of opaque milk jelly, the central obelisk wobbles and cavorts in a most entertaining manner, while the four little cones shake, rattle and roll in a very naughty way. Below is a video of a Solomon's Temple I made a few days ago from real flummery to show you what I mean.  I apologise for the quality of the video, which was made on my mobile phone. Next time I make a Solomon's Temple I will post a better video for you.  

Recipe from W. A. Henderson, The Housekeeper's Instructor. (London: 1805. 12th edition).

In a cookery book supposedly written by the London Tavern cook John Farley, the Solomon's Temple mould is described as having steps. The recipe above by William Henderson is identical to Farley's. However, both are derived from Raffald's original 1769 recipe, which they have misquoted. She says, 'Then fill the top of the Temple to the steps', by which she probably means the base of the structure, that is the part coloured brown with chocolate. Farley and Henderson both say 'red flummery for the steps'. Of course Farley never really wrote The London Art of Cookery, so he probably never made a Solomon's Temple. The typesetter made a mistake, which was copied by Henderson. Oh! The never-ending joys of cookery bookery!

A real Solomon's Temple in flummery this time. The base is flavoured with chocolate dissolved in coffee; the central obelisk  is coloured with cochineal. Only the little cones are the original white flummery colour. This was made using a reproduction Solomon's Temple mould I commissioned from genius ceramic artist Morgen Hall. 

Some Solomon's Temple Moulds have miniature melons and cherries (jewel fruits) which were cast on the chocolate or coffee base in different colours, as in this example moulded from a 1790s creamware mould in my collection

Solomon's Temple moulds were made in other forms. A design with a large central cupola and four smaller surrounding domes became known as a Kosiki mould in the later nineteenth century. Here is a Solomon's Temple in flummery made from one of these.

If you want to find out more about period jellies and flummeries, visit this page on my website.

See if you can spot our fake Solomon's Temple on the table displayed in the Mrs Raffald exhibition in Houston. Why not go to Rienzi at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and see it for yourself. Though I must warn you, it does not wobble like a real one.

This blog is created by Historic Food. Go to the Historic Food Website.

Go to Morgen Hall's Website.