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Lemon Whip
Juice of 4 lemons, 2 cupfuls sugar, 1/2 box of gelatine dissolved in 1/2 cupful of water, whites of 4 eggs, 1/4 pound candied cherries, 1 pint of boiling water. Mix water, juice, sugar, and dissolved gelatine together; set on ice to cool. When beginning to harden add the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth, and whip together thoroughly. Line mould with the cherries, and fill with mixture.
This is a chilled gelatine whip in the family of snow puddings, and it depends on raw egg white beaten into a setting jelly. The proportions and the vessel language also need translating before the recipe can be read clearly.
- Raw egg white is never cookedThe pint of boiling water is mixed with the lemon juice, sugar and gelatine and then chilled on ice; the four egg whites go in only once the mixture is beginning to set, so they never reach a temperature that would kill Salmonella. Nothing in the method pasteurises them, and the dessert is then held cool and eaten as-is. Use a current recipe if you want this dish.
- Long cold holding makes it worseLong cold holding -- A moulded gelatine whip must sit for hours to set, and any leftovers are held cold rather than reheated. That is extended refrigerator time for a sweet, aerated protein foam containing untreated egg.
- "1/2 box of gelatine"A period box of granulated gelatine generally held about an ounce, so half a box is roughly two of today's quarter-ounce packets. The figure is not exact, and the setting strength of nineteenth-century gelatine was not standardised against modern product.
- Juice of 4 lemonsDepending on the size of the fruit, four lemons yield somewhere near half a cup to two-thirds of a cup of juice. By modern standards the two cupfuls of sugar make a very sweet mixture.
- Candied cherriesThese are glace cherries, not maraschino. "Line mould with the cherries" means arranging them against the mould before the mixture goes in, so that they show on the surface when the whip is turned out.
- YieldA pint of water plus the juice, sugar and beaten whites fills a mould of roughly a quart and a half once whipped.
Lemon whips and snow puddings were staples of the American dessert table in the later nineteenth century, as commercially prepared gelatine displaced the older labour of boiling down calves' feet or buying sheets of isinglass. The technique is the same throughout the genre: a clear lemon jelly is allowed to thicken to the consistency of unbeaten egg white, then beaten stiff whites are whipped in so the mixture sets pale and foamy rather than clear. Lining the mould with candied fruit gives a decorative turned-out surface at little cost.