Home › The Principles of Cookery › Pippins, Frosted
Pippins, Frosted
Take half a dozen russets or Ribston pippins, pare, core, and divide them in halves, then place them side by side, with the flat part downwards, on a buttered tin. Whisk the white of a fresh egg to a firm froth. Spread it on them, then sprinkle over them the thin rind of a lemon cut into long narrow strips, and add a covering of powdered and sifted sugar. Bake in a moderate oven until tender, and serve hot. Time to bake, about half an hour. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A simple baked apple dish in which whisked egg white and sugar form a thin meringue-like crust. The main adjustments are variety substitutions and reading the Victorian oven language.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no temperatures; "moderate oven" is conventionally read today as around 350F (175C). Half an hour at that heat will soften halved apples; if the crust colours too fast, drop the heat rather than covering it, since foil will make the meringue weep.
- The applesRibston Pippin and the russets are firm, aromatic dessert apples that hold their shape. Cox's Orange Pippin, reputedly raised from a Ribston Pippin seed, is the closest common modern equivalent; Braeburn or Honeycrisp work. Avoid Bramley or other cookers, which collapse into sauce and drown the topping.
- "Powdered and sifted sugar"In Victorian usage this is granulated sugar crushed and sieved fine — the equivalent of modern caster or superfine sugar, not confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will bake to a chalky film.
- Egg white quantityOne white beaten to firm peaks is barely enough to coat twelve apple halves. Two whites give a more even covering; beat them stiff but not dry, or the froth will slide off the cut faces before it sets.
- Lemon rindPare the zest with a peeler and cut it into fine julienne, avoiding the white pith. Thin strips exposed on top of a 350F oven for thirty minutes can scorch — tuck them into the meringue rather than laying them on the surface.
- The tinButter a shallow baking tin or rimmed sheet well; the sugar and apple juices caramelise at the base and will weld the halves down. A sheet of baking parchment over the butter saves the trouble.
- Yield and servingSix apples halved serves three or four as written. Serve hot, as directed — the meringue softens and beads with syrup within an hour of cooling. The recipe names no accompaniment; cream or a thin custard would not be out of period.
- The cost note"Probable cost, 10d." is tenpence in pre-decimal currency, included so a housekeeper could budget the dish. It carries no cooking information.
Cassell's belongs to the great late-Victorian household encyclopaedias, and this entry sits among many apple dishes distinguished mostly by how the fruit is dressed — buttered, spiced, glazed, or, as here, frosted. "Frosted" is the period word for a thin sugared egg-white coating that bakes to a pale crisp shell, the same idea behind frosted grapes and frosted cakes; the sugar-coating sense appears to be older than the modern use of "frosting" for a soft buttercream. The two apples named were among the most prized English dessert varieties of the nineteenth century: the Ribston Pippin, generally traced to a tree raised at Ribston Hall in Yorkshire in the early eighteenth century, and the russets, a whole family of rough-skinned keepers valued because they stored through winter in a cool loft. Apples were one of the few fresh fruits a household could count on in February.