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Pineapple Glace for Dessert
Take some slices of pineapple, and boil them in syrup as if for a compote (see PINEAPPLE, COMPOTE OF). Let them remain in the syrup until cold, then drain them entirely from it, put a skewer half-way through each slice, and place them in a hot screen to dry. Prepare some sugar as follows. Dissolve a pound of it in a pint of water, put it over a quick fire, skim carefully, and boil it until it has reached the third, or feathered, degree (see SUGAR BOILING). When it is almost done, stir it lightly for a minute or two, and press the side of the pan with the spoon. In order to ascertain when the sugar has reached the proper stage, dip in the skimmer, shake it, and give it a sudden toss. If done enough, the sugar will fly off like snowflakes. When the precise point is reached (a few seconds will make a difference), put in the slices of pineapple by means of the skewers, cover them entirely with the sugar, and then place them on a wire fruit-drainer. In about ten minutes, if the operation has been successful, it ought to be possible to draw away the fruit, without disturbing the sugar, by pressing it with the fingers from beneath. Preparations of this kind are best left to the confectioner. Time to dry the fruit, about an hour. Probable cost, pineapples, when cheap, 1s. to 2s. each.
This is a confectioner's technique rather than a cook's, and the book admits as much in its last line. Everything depends on the sugar hitting one narrow stage and on the fruit being genuinely dry when it goes in.
- The hinge: drynessAny surface moisture on the pineapple will dissolve the sugar shell and turn it cloudy and sticky within the hour. Drain the compote slices thoroughly and dry them slowly before dipping; a syrup-wet slice cannot be glazed.
- "Feathered degree"In the old scale of sugar boiling the feather degree falls somewhere in the region of 235-240F/113-115C, close to soft ball, though period manuals do not agree closely on where each degree sits. The skimmer test described here — sugar flying off like snowflakes when the skimmer is tossed — is the traditional check, and a thermometer gets you to roughly the same place with less drama.
- "A hot screen"A heated drying closet or plate rack in front of the range. An oven at its lowest setting with the door ajar, or a dehydrator, serves the same purpose; the aim is warm air moving over the fruit, not baking it.
- "A quick fire"High heat; the syrup is meant to be brought up briskly rather than simmered slowly.
- MeasuresA pound of sugar is about 2 1/4 cups; the imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so a little under 2 1/2 US cups of water. The proportion is loose — the water is only a vehicle and most of it boils away.
- Do not stir once it is hotThe instruction to stir lightly and press the pan with the spoon near the end is period practice and works against you. Agitation and stray crystals on the pan wall are what turn a clear glaze into a grainy one; brush the sides down with a wet pastry brush instead and leave it alone.
- WeatherBoiled-sugar work suffers on a humid day: the shell draws water from the air and goes tacky. Dry, cool conditions help, and there is little to be done about damp weather in a domestic kitchen.
- Pineapple and yieldCanned pineapple rings in syrup skip the compote stage entirely and are more uniform in thickness, which matters for even dipping. A pound of sugar will glaze far more fruit than one pineapple gives; expect eight to twelve slices from a medium fruit.
- Cost, then and nowOne to two shillings a pineapple was a real sum in the 1870s or 80s, when this book was in circulation — this was a dish for a dessert service meant to be looked at as much as eaten.
Glacé fruit — fruit candied in syrup, then sealed in a thin cracking shell of boiled sugar — belonged to the confectioner's trade rather than the kitchen, which is why Cassell's ends by handing the job back to the professionals. The pineapple's presence marks the period precisely: British growers had raised them under glass in heated "pineries" since the eighteenth century at ruinous expense, and by the time this dictionary appeared steamers were bringing fruit from the West Indies and the Azores cheaply enough that a middle-class household could contemplate one, though a shilling or two still made it an occasion. Dressing the slices on skewers and standing them on a wire drainer reflects the Victorian dessert course at its most architectural, when glazed fruit was piled on tiered stands to catch the candlelight. The scale of sugar-boiling degrees used here — thread, pearl, blow, feather, ball, crack — is French in origin and was standard in English confectionery manuals long before household thermometers were common.