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Meringue of Apples
Take twelve apples (russet or Ribston pippins are the best, as they are less watery than others), cut them in quarters, take out the cores, and slice. Place them in a stewpan, and stir over a brisk fire for a quarter of an hour with six ounces of butter and a quarter of a pound of pounded sugar. When cool, add two table-spoonfuls of jam, according to taste. Place the whole in the form of a pyramid in the centre of a dish, and cover thickly with the whites of three eggs, whipped to a firm cream with a quarter of a pound of pounded sugar. Lay this mixture on, sprinkle more sugar over, and bake. When done, the meringue should have acquired a pale yellow colour. Time, about ten minutes to bake. Probable cost, 1s. 7d., exclusive of jam.
A soft-meringue-topped apple compote of the kind Victorian kitchens used to finish a dinner cheaply. The main adjustments are the sugar, the oven, and knowing when to stop cooking the apples.
- Pounded sugarThis is sugar crushed fine in a mortar — use caster (superfine) sugar throughout. Granulated will not dissolve fully in the egg whites and the meringue will weep syrup.
- ApplesRibston pippin and russet are dense, dry, aromatic dessert apples still found at English orchards but rarely in supermarkets. Substitute a firm variety that holds flavour when cooked: Braeburn, Cox, or Golden Delicious. Avoid Bramley or other cookers, which collapse to a wet purée.
- Brisk fire, quarter of an hourThe aim is to drive off moisture until the apples are a thick, almost jam-like mass that holds a shape. Keep stirring — with six ounces of butter and four of sugar in the pan it will catch and darken quickly over high heat.
- Six ounces of butterSix ounces -- That is 170 g for roughly 3 lb of apples, a generous amount. Three or four ounces gives the same silky compote without pooling fat under the meringue.
- Whipping the whitesThree whites with a quarter pound (115 g) of sugar is a soft French meringue, about 38 g of sugar per white. Whip the whites to soft peaks first, then add the sugar a spoonful at a time and beat to a stiff, glossy mass — added all at once it deflates.
- Sealing the pyramidSpread the meringue right down to the dish so no compote shows. Any gap lets steam escape through the crust and cracks it.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature; around 350F (175C) for the ten minutes stated will set the surface and colour it pale gold. Hotter and the peaks brown before the interior firms; the dish must be ovenproof, which the original takes for granted.
- JamThe recipe leaves the kind of jam open; apricot or quince suits, for perfume and body rather than sweetness. Stir it in only once the apples have cooled, as instructed.
- YieldTwelve apples makes a substantial dish for six to eight. Serve warm the day it is made — a soft meringue over fruit weeps within a few hours.
Meringue is often said to reach English cookery from France, where sweetened whipped whites baked dry are recorded by the end of the seventeenth century, though whipped-white recipes appear in English manuscripts before the French word itself is recorded; the popular derivation of the name from the Swiss town of Meiringen, or from a pastry cook called Gasparini, is traditional rather than documented. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the 1870s the technique may well have served as a household economy: a kitchen that used yolks for custards, sauces and pastry glaze would often have whites to spare, and burying a pan of stewed fruit under them turned a plain compote into a company dessert. The apple varieties named point to the same thrifty logic. Ribston pippin, a Yorkshire dessert apple propagated from the eighteenth century, and the russets were valued precisely for their dry, dense flesh, which cooks down without flooding the dish stand up in a pyramid under its meringue.