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Pastry, Iced
Iced pastry is generally used for fruit tarts and sweet dishes; there are two or three ways of doing it. First--beat the white of an egg to a firm froth. When the pastry is almost done enough take it out of the oven, brush it over with the egg, cover it with powdered sugar, sprinkle a few drops of water upon it, and return it to the oven for a few minutes to harden, taking care that it does not colour. Or--mix half a pound of powdered and sifted sugar with the white of an egg, beaten to a firm froth, and two table-spoonfuls of cold water; keep stirring until the icing is used. When the pastry has been baked, and is nearly cold, brush it over with the icing, and put it into a cool oven to harden. Or--moisten the pastry with cold water before baking it, and press a thick coating of powdered sugar lightly upon it.
Three finishes for a sweet pastry crust, all built on egg white and sugar. The distinction between them is when the sugar meets the heat, and that decides whether you get a thin crackled glaze or an opaque white shell.
- Powdered sugar is not confectioners' sugarIn Victorian usage "powdered and sifted" sugar meant loaf sugar crushed and passed through a sieve — closest to what is now sold as caster or superfine sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch, which can dull the finish; caster sugar dissolved in the egg white is nearer the intended gloss.
- Half a poundAbout 225 g, or roughly a cup and an eighth of caster sugar, beaten into one egg white with two tablespoons of water. That gives a brushable icing rather than a stiff royal icing, and the recipe says to brush it on rather than spread it.
- Oven temperaturesA "cool oven", the term the recipe uses for setting the second icing, is usually reckoned at somewhere around 225-250F. The first method returns the tart to whatever heat it was baking at, but only for a few minutes, and the aim is to dry the surface, not to bake it further.
- Keeping it from colouringThis is the hinge. Egg white and sugar brown quickly, and once the glaze takes on colour the effect is lost. Watch it continuously, and if the oven is still fierce from baking, prop the door or move the tart to a lower shelf.
- Why the drops of waterSprinkling water over the dry sugar in the first method dissolves the surface grains so they fuse into a sheet of glaze rather than sitting as loose crystals. A fine spray from a mister does the job more evenly than shaking drops from the fingers.
- Nearly cold, not coldThe second icing is brushed onto pastry that has cooled almost completely. Ice a hot tart and the icing slides off the fat-rich surface and pools at the edges.
- The third methodSugar pressed onto damp raw pastry before baking gives a crisp, slightly caramelised crust rather than a white finish.
- Raw egg whiteIn the second method the icing is only dried at low heat and never reaches a pasteurising temperature. Pasteurised liquid egg white is the sensible choice if the tart is for anyone elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised, though it can be slower to beat to a firm froth.
Icing pastry in this way belongs to a long tradition of finishing tarts with egg white and sugar that predates the piped royal icings of the later nineteenth century — recipes for "iceing" a tart with beaten white and fine sugar appear in English cookery books from the seventeenth century onward, at a time when sugar was still an expensive display ingredient and a white glazed surface signalled a household that could afford it. The three variants may also reflect the practical realities of a coal range: the first suits a cook who can catch the tart in its last minutes, the second one working with a dying oven, and the third asks nothing of the fire at all.