Whipped Jelly

This is a Recipe Sheet printed for Chivers & Sons Ltd in the 1940's. The paper has faded with age and the sepia photo on the front depicts the English countryside of H.E.Bates; headscarved women picking strawberries, the flat-capped farmer and his carthorse laden with the freshest fruit ready for it's lumber to 'The Orchard Factory', there it will be transformed into 'Those famous Chivers products'. It's a world long gone, suffocated by mass importation and the forgotten honesty of seasonal food.

The six recipes are for jelly; the Jelly-filled orange segments that we, of a certain age, remember from childhood parties. Sometimes they were speared with a cocktail stick, threaded with a paper sail to resemble little boats, a detail undoubtedly since made illegal by our friends in Brussels, far too dangerous!

The Jellied Dates are one of the horrors of childhood, the kind of pudding a stuffy aunt would make for you, watching as you ate it, and then, presuming that your hurried consumption (to get the awful deed over with as quickly as possible) was a sign of enjoyment, insisted you have seconds and thirds. What could possibly be less appetising than a 'mock cream' filled date encased in jelly like some hideous dinosaur eye fossilised in Amber?

What does fascinate me though are the following two recipes (copied directly form the original leaflet) which require you to whip the jelly. I have never heard of this before and certainly can't remember ever eating anything that could have been a 'whipped jelly'?

CAMBRIDGE STRAWBERRY WHIP

1 pt. pkt Chivers Jelly (strawberry)

Chivers Strawbery Jam

Make up the jelly as directed on the packet. Set a little in the bottom of individual glasses. When set, spread a layer of jam on each. Whip the remaining jelly until stiff, pile into the glasses and decorate with a little jam.

FIRELIGHT CUBES

Pint pkt Chivers Jelly (Lemon or Orange) Chivers Jam

Melt jelly cubes in boiling water to make 3/4 pint in all. Pour half in a shallow dish, leave till set. When remainder begins to thicken and adhere to the sides of the basin whisk until stiff. When quite set, cut both clear and whipped jellies into cubes with a wet knife, arrange in individual glasses on a base of jam.