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Pears Imperial
Bake sunshine cake in muffin tins; when cool scoop out centres; simmer Bartlett pears in spiced syrup until tender, fill centres at blossom end with dates, figs, and hickory nuts. Set the pears in the cakes. Add maraschino to syrup, pour over cakes. Dust with sugar. Serve ice cold.
A composed dessert rather than a single preparation: individual sponge cakes hollowed into cups, each holding a whole poached pear stuffed with dried fruit and nuts. The original assumes you already know how to make sunshine cake and spiced syrup, so both need filling in.
- Sunshine cakeAn American egg-foam sponge leavened only by beaten eggs, with no butter and no chemical leavening; published formulas vary, but separated eggs, sugar, sifted flour, cream of tartar in the whites, and lemon or vanilla flavouring are usual. Baked in muffin tins, roughly 350F for 18-20 minutes should suit; the cakes must be fully cool and firm before you scoop them, or they tear.
- PearsBartletts must be firm-ripe, not soft, or they collapse in the syrup. Peel them, leave the stem end intact, and core from the blossom end (the wide bottom) with a small melon baller so the cavity holds the filling.
- Spiced syrupRoughly 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar with a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, and a strip of lemon peel. Poach at a bare simmer, covered with a round of parchment to keep the fruit submerged; 15-25 minutes depending on ripeness. A knife should meet no resistance but the pear should still hold its shape.
- Reducing the syrupLift the pears out, then boil the syrup down to about a cup so it coats rather than floods the cake. Poured thin, it turns the sponge to paste.
- MaraschinoHere this means maraschino liqueur, the clear cherry-kernel spirit from Dalmatia, not the pink syrup from a jar of modern cocktail cherries. Add a tablespoon or two off the heat so the alcohol and aroma survive. Kirsch is the closest substitute.
- Hickory nutsNative hickories are rarely sold now; pecans are the same genus and are the closest readily available substitute. Toast and chop them, and chop the dates and figs fine so the cavity packs tightly.
- Serving"Serve ice cold" means assembled and chilled at least two hours, which also lets the syrup set slightly. Dust with confectioners' sugar just before it goes to the table, since it dissolves on a damp surface within minutes. One pear and one cake per person.
Sunshine cake belongs to the family of fat-free American sponges — angel food, sunshine, and their many hotel variants — that spread rapidly after cheap wire egg beaters and fine-milled flour made a reliable foam cake possible in the home kitchen. Dressing that plainness up with poached fruit, dates and figs, nuts and a splash of imported maraschino is pure turn-of-the-century restaurant manner, and the name "Imperial" is the same decorative flourish that produced Peach Melba and Pears Hélène. Bartlett pears were the natural choice for a book of this sort: they were the dominant commercial pear in the United States by 1900, canned and shipped in enormous quantities. That maraschino appears without comment suggests the recipe was compiled before Prohibition made a cordial bottle an awkward thing to have in the pantry.