The Instagram-Friendly Return of Wobbly Jelly
Jelly has shaken off its dowdy reputation to become the perfect food for the social media age. When executed correctly, these wobbly creations prove incredibly photogenic - but does taste matter anymore when something looks this good on camera?
Recent claims suggest savoury jellies - those lurid dishes reminiscent of 1950s culinary disasters - are suddenly fashionable again. According to the New York Times, this resurgence comes as chefs face pressure to produce viral visuals while molecular gastronomy becomes "old hat".
Behind the Jelly Renaissance
The notion that jelly is having a moment isn't entirely new. This time last year, supermarket jelly cube sales were rising sharply while vintage jelly moulds experienced a five-fold increase in online sales. Fifteen years ago, high-end "jellymongers" Bompas & Parr - known for elaborate architectural creations - first published their influential book on the subject.
Many people remain sceptical about jelly due to its origins. Gelatine is a pork byproduct, extracted from animal bones, skin and connective tissue. However, modern cooks have widely available vegan-friendly alternatives like carrageenan and agar, derived from algae, that work equally well.
The Practical Challenges of Perfect Jelly
While colourful, wobbling jelly creations dominate Instagram and TikTok feeds, experiencing the jelly renaissance first-hand requires making your own. The journey proves more challenging than it appears.
First, understand that there's no such thing as a universal jelly recipe. Instructions vary wildly because multiple factors affect the outcome. Moulds come in peculiar sizes, and suggested setting times often prove meaningless - jelly sets when it sets.
Better to rely on practical measurements: fill your mould to the brim with water, then pour into a measuring jug to determine your total liquid volume. For gelatine, remember that one leaf typically sets 100ml of liquid. Confusingly, gelatine leaves come in four grades - bronze, silver, gold and platinum - with different setting strengths, though supermarket shelves usually only stock platinum.
The basic technique involves softening leaves in cold water for five minutes, then adding them to liquid hotter than 35C but not boiling. Once dissolved, pour into your mould and refrigerate. Everything else involves guesswork, practice and occasional panic.
Experimental Jelly Adventures
Starting with Nigel Slater's grapefruit jelly seemed straightforward, though replacing fresh grapefruit with juice simplified the process. The recipe's call for "six small sheets" of gelatine proved confounding since leaves don't come in standard sizes. Using the 1 leaf/100ml ratio plus an extra half-leaf seemed logical.
The disaster struck during de-moulding. After impatiently using water that proved too hot, the outermost centimetre melted, creating an ill-defined blob. Despite the appearance, the jelly tasted lovely - not too sweet with a pleasant bitter grapefruit note.
The summer fruit in raspberry jelly presented different challenges. Using diluted cordial rather than fresh raspberries, the enormous ring mould required 19 gelatine sheets. The fruit kept floating back to the surface until, after six hours, the first strawberry stayed put. Though the final product emerged in perfect condition, it slowly collapsed "like a citadel in an earthquake". The wreckage tasted delicious when eaten with a spoon.
The savoury chicken jelly experiment recalled historical precedents - the first recorded jellies were savoury, requiring medieval cooks to boil animals down to transparent jelly. The modern version involved suspending diced chicken breast, celery, parsley and tomatoes in gelled stock. Though it set quickly, de-moulded easily and looked impressively weird, the result proved both bland and offensive - cold chicken stock-flavoured jelly that nobody wanted to eat.
The blancmange rabbit (containing no actual rabbit) used a plastic rabbit-shaped mould. Despite never having eaten blancmange, the journalist discovered milk-based jelly proved less appealing than imagined. The ears particularly resisted de-moulding, requiring considerable patience and hot water. The best that could be said was that a small child would probably have eaten it without complaint.
Striped jelly represented a complication upgrade, requiring alternating layers of cranberry and blancmange jelly. The visual contrast worked better than the flavour combination, which proved jarring and unpleasant. Using an enamelled Ikea vase instead of a proper mould created de-moulding difficulties that generated considerable frustration.
The triumphant G&T jelly, adapted from the Adventures in Jelly website, combined gin, tonic and lemon with gelatine and sugar. Using an old, cracked ceramic mould surprisingly produced beautiful results with perfect wobble. It genuinely tasted like a solidified gin and tonic and proved a dinner party hit, with guests photographing then devouring the entire creation.
The jelly renaissance demonstrates that while appearance might drive the trend, taste ultimately determines whether these wobbly creations become more than just Instagram fodder. As with any culinary trend, practice makes perfect - though some flavours work better in jelly form than others.
