page_title: Gelatin dessert
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gelatin dessert / History
caption_attribution_description: Isabella Beeton: Book of Household Management
context_page_description: Gelatin desserts are desserts made with a sweetened and flavored processed collagen product. This kind of dessert was first recorded as jelly by Hannah Glasse in her 18th century book The Art of Cookery, appearing in a layer of trifle. Jelly is also featured in the best selling cookbooks of English food writers Eliza Acton and Isabella Beeton in the 19th century.
  They can be made by combining plain gelatin with other ingredients or by using a premixed blend of gelatin with additives. Fully prepared gelatin desserts are sold in a variety of forms, ranging from large decorative shapes to individual serving cups.
  Popular brands of premixed gelatin include: Aeroplane Jelly in Australia, Hartley's in the United Kingdom, and Jell-O from Kraft Foods and Royal from Jel Sert in North America. In the US and Canada this dessert is known by the genericized trademark "jello".
context_section_description: Before gelatin became widely available as a commercial product, the most typical gelatin dessert was "calf's foot jelly". As the name indicates, this was made by extracting and purifying gelatin from the foot of a calf. This gelatin was used for savory dishes in aspic, or was mixed with fruit juice and sugar for a dessert.
  In the eighteenth century, gelatin from calf's feet, isinglass and hartshorn was colored blue with violet juice, yellow with saffron, red with cochineal and green with spinach and allowed to set in layers in small, narrow glasses. It was flavored with sugar, lemon juice and mixed spices. This preparation was called jelly; English cookery writer Hannah Glasse was the first to record the use of this jelly in trifle in her book The Art of Cookery, first published in 1747. Preparations on making jelly (including illustrations) appear in the best selling cookbooks of English writers Eliza Acton and Isabella Beeton in the 19th century.
caption: Illustrations of jelly (top row) from Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861. Top left, "jelly of two colors", top right, "raspberry cream" flavor
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