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Dessert Ice Currants
To the beaten whites of two eggs add a quarter of a pint of clear spring water, and mix them thoroughly together. Select some fine bunches of currants, red and white. Immerse each bunch separately in the mixture, and let them all drip a minute, then roll them carefully in a quantity of finely-sifted sugar; let the rolling be repeated. Lay them with a space between each bunch on paper to dry and become crystallised.
Frosted fruit for the dessert table, built on a raw egg-white glaze that is never cooked at any stage. The technique is simple; the problem is the egg.
- Why this one failsThe coating is raw egg white thinned with water, left to air-dry at room temperature and then eaten. Nothing in the process reaches a temperature that would kill Salmonella, and the film stays moist for the hours it takes to dry. If you want frosted fruit, use a current recipe built on pasteurised egg white or meringue powder.
- The drying stage compounds it"Lay them on paper to dry" implies a long spell standing at room temperature; the recipe gives no time or place. Refrigeration is not assumed here, and the sugar shell is far too thin and porous to act as a preservative.
- A quarter of a pintIn an English book of this date that is 5 fluid ounces, or about 140-150 ml — a generous half cup. It is a very loose glaze by modern standards. The recipe does direct that the rolling in sugar be repeated.
- "Finely-sifted sugar"Probably not modern icing sugar: most likely granulated or pounded sugar sifted to remove lumps and coarse crystals, with caster sugar the nearest modern equivalent. Icing sugar tends to dissolve on contact with the wet glaze and give a dull paste rather than a sparkling crust.
- The currantsRed and white currants on the strig — whole bunches with stems attached, which is what makes the dish work as a table ornament. They have a short summer season and are rarely stocked in American supermarkets; look to farmers' markets or pick-your-own in July.
Frosted or "iced" fruit belongs to the elaborate dessert service of the Victorian dinner, where the last course was as much a display as a course — bunches of currants and grapes, whole cherries and rose petals given a crust of sugar and arranged in pyramids on tall glass comports. The method is a general one, applied to whatever fruit the season offered; the same egg-and-sugar treatment appears in nineteenth-century books for grapes, gooseberries and mint leaves. Currants suited it particularly well: red and white varieties on the strig gave contrasting colour, and the translucent skins glittered under candlelight. The dish assumes eggs eaten within a day or two of laying — a condition that has not survived the move to industrial egg production.