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Pears, Frosted or Iced
Take half a dozen large pears, which have been stewed whole in syrup. Dry them well, then cover them smoothly and evenly with a white icing made as follows. Beat the white of an egg to a firm froth, add a quarter of a pound of powdered and sifted sugar, a table-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a few drops of cold water, and beat the mixture thoroughly until it forms a very thick smooth liquid. When the pears are covered, set them in a warm place, or in a cool oven, to stiffen the icing. Probable cost, 2d. each. Sufficient for a dessert-dish.
A Victorian dessert centrepiece: poached pears sheathed in royal icing and dried until the shell sets hard. The whole thing hinges on the pears being genuinely dry before the icing goes on.
- Dry the pears properlyIcing will slide off or dissolve into a syrupy mess if any moisture remains. Lift the pears from the syrup, stand them upright on a rack and leave them until the surface is tacky rather than wet, blotting with a cloth or paper as needed.
- The pears themselvesThe recipe assumes you already have six pears stewed whole in syrup, and gives no further detail than that. Firm varieties such as Bosc or Conference hold their shape; ripe Bartlett/Williams will collapse.
- "Powdered and sifted sugar"This is confectioners'/icing sugar, sifted to remove lumps. A quarter of a pound is about 4 oz, roughly 1 cup — a loose ratio for one egg white. Expect to add more, up to 8 oz, to get a coating thick enough to cling without running off the shoulders of the fruit.
- Raw egg whiteThe icing is never cooked; a cool oven only dries it. Use pasteurised egg white, or meringue powder or aquafaba made up per the packet, especially if serving to children, the elderly or anyone pregnant.
- "A cool oven"Usually reckoned somewhere around 200-250F (95-120C). The recipe gives neither temperature nor time, so leave the door slightly ajar and check often. A modern oven's lowest setting is often hotter than a Victorian range's dying heat, so watch for the icing yellowing or the pears weeping.
- Or skip the ovenRoyal icing air-dries perfectly well. Left in a dry, warm room the shells will firm in two to three hours and harden overnight — the safer route if your oven runs hot.
- Lemon juiceA tablespoon does two jobs: it keeps the icing white and slackens it enough to flow smoothly. Add the water a drop at a time, since a fraction too much makes the coating slide.
- Yield and servingSix pears; the recipe says only "Sufficient for a dessert-dish". Assemble the same day — the icing softens and pits as the fruit continues to give up moisture.
- "Probable cost, 2d. each"Twopence apiece in pre-decimal currency; Cassell's gives a "probable cost" for most of its entries. It has no modern equivalent worth calculating.
Iced or frosted fruit belongs to the Victorian dessert course, where the aim was display as much as flavour: whole pears, glossy white and standing upright, made a table piece that could be carried in and looked at before it was eaten. The icing is what English cooks came to call royal icing " egg white beaten with sifted sugar and sharpened with lemon " the same mixture used on wedding and Twelfth cakes, and the name is generally traced to its use on grand nineteenth-century celebration cakes. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery gives an entry this decorative a per-portion cost; the book treats an ornamental dessert as a normal thing to attempt, provided it can be done with stewed fruit and a single egg.