An Intro and Sweet Cubes of Jellied Milk

Hi there! I'm Aelis de la Rose, Apprentice to Seamus O'Caellaigh (OL, OP, OS). I have been making bougie jello and pudding shots since around 2008. Oh, but not your average frat house jello shot with bottom-shelf vodka and back-of-the-drawer jello, oh no. Around here we do *Fancy*. 

I've also been in the SCA since 2000, and met Seamus in...2010ish? I'm not sure what year, it's been a long time. I am a voice herald and a bard and I teach and coordinate things, and more recently have become Seamus' Apprentice (student in historical Arts and Sciences). My focus is in two closely-related areas: researching and replicating boozy desserts in history, and combining non-alcoholic historical desserts with modern recipes and techniques to remake them as historical desserts with a modern, often boozy, twist. 

Before I started getting into the historical side of the shot and dessert making, I had an excel spreadsheet and some word documents to keep track of my jello, jelly, and pudding shot recipes and notes. And that did everything I needed, really. But now that I am moving into recipes with more details, links to online articles and videos, and have more to say about tasting notes and potential variations on recipes, I thought a blog would be a better format. Easier for sharing, less restrictive than spreadsheet cells. So that's what this blog is- a space for me to keep a running record of my experiments. Feel free to follow along if you like. 

One important language clarification that will continuously make an appearance: 'jello' refers to something that uses pre-flavored gelatin (like the Jell-O brand or knockoff that is a fruit flavor, for example), whereas 'jelly' refers to a dessert that is made with plain unflavored gelatin (Knox is my go-to). 

All that being said, away we go!

Back in July, Seamus got me a lovely birthday gift- a book called Tudor Cookery, which has all sorts of recipes. One of the cool things about it is that the original recipe is written out, followed by a modern translation of/take on the recipe, so you're not left guessing if you aren't experienced at following medieval kitchen instructions.

The recipe I went straight to is called Sweet Cubes of Jellied Milk. It's basically what is sounds like, and while it may initially sound a little weird, we use sweetened condensed milk all the time in desserts. Having made a very tasty Thai Iced Tea jelly shot in the past, I could attest to the use of dairy in this exact type of situation, so I was ready to give it a go.

The added interest in this one is rosewater, which took me a bit of researching to clarify. There are two types you can get on the big wide internet, and it's important to know the difference! One is diluted and one is not. And of course, the recipe doesn't say which to use, it just gives an amount. So I did a bit of reading before buying any, to try and get a sense of which one the recipe writer may be referring to. Having never used rosewater myself, I didn't want a nasty surprise on my first go. Fortunately I chose wisely (diluted!), and away we went!

Original recipe:

"A white leach: Take a quart of newe milk, and three ounces weight of Isinglasse, half a pound of beaten suger, and stirre them together, and let it boile half a quarter of an hower till it be thicke, stirring them al the while: then straine it with three sponfull of Rosewater, then put it into a platter and let it coole, and cut it in squares. Lay it faire in dishes, and lay golde upon it."

Modern recipe:

25 ml (5 tsps) gelatine

575 ml (1 pt) milk

100 g (4 oz) sugar

25 ml (5 tsps) rosewater

"Sprinkle the gelatine onto 60 ml (4 tbls) of the milk in a cup. Leave for 5 minutes before standing the cup in hot water and stirring the gelatine until it is completely dissolved. Warm the remaining milk, stir in the gelatine and the sugar, and simmer, stirring continuously for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the rosewater, and pour into a shallow baking dish about 15 cm (6 in) square which has been freshly rinsed in cold water. Allow to set firmly in a cool place before cutting into squares with a sharp knife. The squares may then be either arranged in a regular pattern or stacked as a pyramid on a flat plate ready for the table."

Notes

-Overall flavor was lightly sweet and pleasant, with a floral scent but not floral flavor, plus had a lovely cooling effect on a hot day. Would make again! 

-The modern directions were not good. In the first step (soaking gelatin in small amount of milk), I found my mixture quickly turned into chunky sludge. I was able to salvage it, but this could be avoided altogether. It would be better to do the gelatin dissolve in my normal manner (let it bloom in the pot over a large quantity of liquid).
    While not always the case, in this particular recipe the original instructions not only made sense but are much more like how I normally do my shots than the modernized instructions. After the first step fiasco, I just followed the original recipe instructions by adding everything together except the rosewater to bring to a boil, then simmered for 5ish minutes and added the rosewater after.

-Question/experiment for next time- does all the milk have to boil, or could I do half hot liquid/half cold liquid like my regular recipes? Then the cooling time would drastically reduce. I don’t see any reason that wouldn’t work, and will likely try it that way next time.

-Rosewater was a lovely addition (good call researching ahead of time on dilution!) It smells great but doesn't taste like eating a bouquet, so it adds the pleasant sensory experience without the overly floral ick.

-For adjustments going forward: if keeping it non-alcoholic, it could be interesting to look at a variety of spices (all manner of Christmas spice: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc.). To make it a boozy dessert, I could do half the liquid as milk (heated with the gelatin), ditch the sugar altogether, and the other half the liquid added after it's cooled a bit- good options could be white chocolate liqueur, Rumchata, Irish cream...really any cream-based alcohol could work. The question is if there are any that would still work well with the rosewater, or if that would have to be sacrificed as well.

-As for the final instruction to 'lay it faire in dishes and lay golde upon it,' there are a number of decorative molds that could be used here. I don't have edible gold leaf lying around, but it sure would look pretty as a finishing touch!